A History of Churchill Island: Settlement, Land Use and the Making of a Heritage Site

E. Rebecca Sanders

Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

May 2015

School of Historical and Philosophical Studies

University of Melbourne

Produced on archival quality paper II

Abstract

This thesis utilises a public history approach to respond to the desires of the project’s public stakeholders to obtain a rigorous and detailed history of Churchill Island, and to examine its nature as a heritage site. It examines how Churchill Island has been variously imagined and used to make a permanent settler colonial space. In doing so it argues that the history of the island offers a rich example of the complexity of settlement in Victoria.

An exploration of the intersections between the practices of community engagement, academia and history, the thesis responds to the challenges thrown up by the History Wars and the Churchill Island Project by making a history of settlement that is both academically critical and publicly accepted. III

Declaration

This is to certify that

I. The thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD, II. Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other materials used, and III. The thesis is less than a 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices.

Signature:

Date: IV

Preface

This thesis is the major outcome of the Churchill Island Project. It was jointly sponsored by research partners, The University of Melbourne and Phillip Island Nature Parks.While the thesis comprises only my original work, it is important to state that some of its findings have been co-produced to meet the needs of the Churchill Island Project. V

Acknowledgements

A PhD thesis is made by many people, and this has been particularly true of the Churchill Island Project.

First, I would like to thank the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne (formerly the Department of History) and Phillip Island Nature Parks not only for their sponsorship through the joint provision of a Melbourne Research Scholarship, but also their continued support of this project. Thank you also to Phillip Island Nature Parks for providing accommodation during my research at Churchill and Phillip Islands and to The School of Historical and Philosophical Studies for the award of a Research and Graduate Studies Scheme. This was an unusual project for both partners, and I sincerely thank you for the opportunity.

At Phillip Island Nature Parks I would particularly like to thank Curator Christine Grayden, Farm Manager Trevor Heywood, former Gardener Megan McCarthy, former Farm Manager Gordon Brown, Churchill Island former Sales and Service and current Volunteer Co-ordinator Patricia Jeffery, Churchill Island Sales and Service Naoko Hosokawa-McRae, Education Ranger Graeme Burgan, former Project Manager Sally O’Neil, Board Member Stella Axarlis, former Executive Assistant Paula Forbes, Executive Assistant Damien Prendergast, CEO Matthew Jackson and former CEO Mark Manteit. Thanks are due Lovell Chen consultants Anita Brady and Libby Blamey as well, who shared research with me and expressed an interest in my work as they put together Churchill Island’s Conservation Management Plan.

To Andrew May, my primary supervisor for the project, I owe you a debt I can never repay. Thank you for your continued support, your comments and insights. You have supported this project above and beyond the call of duty, and this has enabled me to not only submit my thesis, but to achieve enormous personal growth and obtain suite of skills that will be useful for the rest of my professional life. Thank you.

Thank you also to my secondary supervisors Keir Reeves and Penelope Edmonds. Keir, thank you for your ongoing interest in my project long after you had moved on to greener pastures, and to Penny, my profound thanks for assisting me in giving this thesis the intellectual depth it required. Catherine Colbourne is also deserving of thanks for suggesting my thesis should aim to make its contribution to the field of public history. Your words were wise.

To the Friends of Churchill Island Society, who have cheered me on to the finish line, and are no doubt looking forward to the end product, thank you for inviting me to be part of your community. I would especially like to thank Jill and Fred Allen, Roger Hollingsworth, Stella Axarlis, Christine Grayden, Patricia Cleeland, David Maunders, Ann and Peter Jelly, Patricia Baird, Ruth and Tom O’Dea, Mary Mitchell, Irene McKell and Jeff Cole for stimulating discussions, thoughtful comments and your warm hospitality. VI

Numerous people with a personal connection to Churchill Island chose to be involved in this project through its collection of oral interviews, and I thank you for the opportunity to record your memories. I would especially like to thank Carroll and Amy Schulz for access to their most comprehensive personal archive. To Laurie Thompson, thank you for your information on the Pickersgill family and for maintaining lines of communication on the vexed issue of Churchill Island’s settlers. This thesis is the better for your involvement.

Thank you also to the National Library of Australia for the provision of a six week Summer Scholarship, and the staff of the Maps, Manuscripts, Digital Collections for assistance with research and to Gianoula Burns and the staff of the Dance Collection for taking care of me. I am also grateful to Janette Hodgson, Public Lands, Department of Sustainability and Environment; the staff of the Library of the Department of Primary Industries; the State Library of Victoria, Manuscripts, Latrobe and Digital Collections; staff of the Public Records Office of Victoria; Special Collections, The University of Melbourne and the Phillip Island and District Historical Society Museum volunteers.

To my peers at what became the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, fellow National Library Scholars and friends also undertaking postgraduate study, thank you for helpful discussions, friendship and Snifters. In no particular order, Michael Pickering, Mark Pendleton, Fiona Davis, Prue Mann, Julie Davies, Emily Fitzgerald, Erica Millar, Jordy Silverstein, Vannessa Hearman, Peter Russell, Damien Williams, Roland Burke, Angeline Brassier, Leanne Howard, Noah Riseman, Claire McLisky, Timothy Jones, Caitlin Murray, Crystal McKinnon, Liam Connell, Alex McCallum, Keir Wotherspoon, Erik Roper, Ai Kobayashi, Caitlin Mahar, Chris Soeterboek, Pete Minyard, Stephan Bain, Nicole Davis, Tom Rogers, Jennie Jeppesen, Alex Dellious, Sophie Loy Wilson, Andrew Thackerah, Alex Cameron, Ben Mountford, Kirsty Marshal, Kirsty Barry, Allan Davies, Sally Grant, Jeroen Wijnendaele, Hannah Loney, Grace Edwards, Bronwyn Lowe, Charlotte Colding-Smith, Natasha Amendola and Gretel Evans. Special mentions to my ‘community based’ Local History Class at the Princes Hill Community Centre and the superb hospitality of Chateau Mann.

I am grateful to Christine Grayden and Denise O’Hare who helped edit this thesis in addition to my supervisor Andy, as did Sue Farmery. This was an enormous task, and a debt that I still feel I will never be able to repay. It is impossible to see small errors in a document this large. If any errors remain, they are wholly my fault.

To Friends and Family not already mentioned, thank you for putting up with my constant, and invariably inaccurate estimate of when I would really finish the beast. I did, eventually, get there. Thank you for waiting. I love you all, James, Sheri, Amando, Luke, Mum, Dad, Douglas, Megan, Emily, Catherine, Tricia, Max, Shane, Erica and Gareth.

Finally to my partner Owen, who had the great misfortune to meet me during my second year, and has hung in all the way. Without your support, emotional and VII financial, I would never have made it. Thank you. I look forward to organising that pesky passport. VIII

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables: viii

List of Abbreviations: xii

Introduction: The Churchill Island Project 1

Chapter One: A Public History PhD 23

Chapter Two: Augmenting a Public History Approach 52

Chapter Three: Heritage Site: Genesis and Successive Transformations 66

Chapter Four: Making and Forgetting Churchill Island 96

Chapter Five: Settling an Island: Western Port Run to Island Home 133

Chapter Six: Creating a Seaside Retreat, an Expression of Confidence 173

Conclusion: The Churchill Island Project, a Public History Success Story 213

Bibliography: 224

Appendix A: Squatting and Settling 253

IX

Lists of Figures and Tables

Figures

Fig. 1 Diagram illustrating how I defined my relationships with project stakeholders in 2008. Theory and Method Beyond the Ivory Tower: Churchill Island and Public History in Practice. 42 Fig. 2 Churchill Island, circa 1983. Courtesy of Carroll Schulz. 67

Fig. 3 Churchill Island 1976. Sketch by Robert Ingpen. 67

Fig. 4 Churchill Island 2008. Author’s Own. 67

Fig. 5 Restoration work on bakehouse chimney. Courtesy of Carroll Schulz. 79

Fig. 6 The shady main house garden and its cannon 2008. Author’s Own. 87

Fig. 7 Churchill Island from Fisher’s Wetland on neighbouring Phillip Island. Author’s own, 5 June, 2008. 96

Fig. 8 Line of shells near Bass Rock matching O’Neil’s description of a shell midden on Churchill Island. Author’s own, 2014. 102

Fig. 9 A. Arrowsmith, Charts of Port Dalrymple, Tasmania, Furneaux Islands, Western Port, Victoria and Twofold Bay, New South Wales, 20 February 1801. Courtesy of the NLA. 107

Fig. 10 A Portion of Chart of Western Port and Coast to Wilson’s Promontory forming Part of the North Side of Bass Strait. Courtesy of the NLA. 123

Fig. 11 Wetherall, Chart of Western Port in Bass’s Straits by Captn. Wetherall, H.M.S. Fly 1827. Courtesy of the NLA. 126

Fig. 12 A Portion of Australia, Bass Strait, Port Western surveyed by Commr. J.L. Stokes, R.N., 1843. Courtesy of the NLA. 131

Fig. 13 Thomas Ham, Ham’s Squatting Map of Victoria (Port Phillip District, New South Wales): Carefully Corrected to this Date from the Colonial Government Surveys, Crown Lands, Commissioners, Explorers Maps, Private Surveys & c. (Melbourne, Thomas Ham, 1851). Courtesy of the NLA. 143 X

Fig. 14 Detail of Ham’s Squatting Map 1851. 143

Fig. 15 Charles Ferguson, Eastern Entrance to Western Port and the Anchorages off Cape Wollamai Surveyed by Charles Ferguson, Esqre. Chief Harbour Master of Victoria, 1861. Courtesy of the NLA, Insert of Churchill Island enlarged from original and added by E. Rebecca Sanders. 161

Fig. 16 The two cottages built by John Rogers, with the rear or bakehouse cottage on the right. Author’s own, 5 June 2008. 163

Fig. 17 Amess family in front of the house and its gardens. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 189

Fig. 18 Amess posing with his cannon. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 192

Fig. 19 Child proudly assists with ‘chores’. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 195

Fig. 20 The front veranda. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 200

Fig. 21 Amess family photograph in front of the main house and its gardens. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 201

Fig. 22 Amess standing in front of two fences. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 201

Fig. 23 The Moonah woodland. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 203

Fig. 24 Two men in sheep paddock. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 204

Fig. 25 Amess and two other men in eastern part of Churchill Island. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 205

Fig. 26 Servants’ or Manager’s residence circa 1880. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 206 XI

Fig. 27 Amess’s black highland cattle. The colouring of the animal in the background suggests it may have been a more ordinary milk cow. Photograph courtesy Picture Collection of the DSE, formerly the DCNR. 208

Fig. 28 Amess, two Spaniels and gun. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR. 210

Fig. 29 Shooter and second man. Close examination of this photograph show that the man on the left is carrying a gun under his arm, but not the man on the right. Photograph courtesy of the DSE Picture Collection, formerly the DCNR. 210

XII

Tables

Table 1 44

Table 2 Visitation by Financial Year. 89

Table 3 Runs Licensed to John Rogers published in the Victorian Government Gazette. 145

Table 4 Annual Wool Clip Sales for Churchill Island 1867–9. 165 XIII

Abbreviations

Acclimatisation Society of Victoria: ASV

Churchill Island Archives: CIA

Department of Conservation Forests and Lands: DCFL

Department of Conservation and Natural Resources: DCNR

Department of Sustainability and the Environment: DSE

Friends of Churchill Island Society: FOCIS

Heritage Council of Victoria: HCV

Historical Records of Australia: HRA

Historical Records of New South Wales: HRNSW

International Council on Monuments and Sites: ICOMOS

National Library of Australia: NLA

National Trust, Victoria: NTV

New South Wales Government Gazette: NSWGG

Phillip Island and District Historical Society: PIDHS

Phillip Island Nature Parks: PINP

School of Historical and Philosophical Studies: SHAPS

Victorian Conservation Trust: VCT

Victorian Government Gazette: VGG

Victorian National Parks Service: VNPS

1

Introducing the Churchill Island Project

From the 1980s through to the early 2000s, a particular series of events galvanised public opinion in Australia about history: what it should be like, what its purpose was and who had the right to impose their views about it. The country’s national museum was pilloried for its interpretations of Australian history and culture, historian Keith Windschuttle challenged the veracity of academic frontier histories, and the Prime Minister deplored the rise of so called ‘black armband history’, arguing passionately that the purpose of history inside the school ground was to impart civic pride.1 In the United States, things were perhaps even more heated: the Smithsonian had a major exhibit cancelled and its director effectively fired after a congressional inquiry, the Library of Congress’s workers boycotted one of that institute’s more popular travelling exhibitions, and the United States Government also engaged in heated policy discussions about history teaching inside schools.2 While many of these debates in the United States focused on the role of institutions in making history,3 Hilda Kean and Paul Ashton have argued that in Australia these debates focused more specifically around the role of academic historians.4 As Cate Elkner noted in her PhD thesis completed at the height of the History Wars, Windschuttle had not only challenged the kind of frontier history made by Henry Reynolds and Lyndall Ryan that looked further afield than official government archives;5 he had asserted that historians’ work required public oversight, if not by the public themselves, then by one willing to ‘double-check the footnotes of other historians’ on their

1 As Stuart Macintyre notes, these were not the only sites for debate, but for the purposes of this thesis, they were the most recent and prominent. Stuart Macintyre and Anna Clark, The History Wars (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2003), 128, 137, 161–8; Cate Jeanne Elkner, Making Archives, Making Histories: the Santospirito Project PhD Thesis University of Melbourne, Department of History, 2004, 277; Inga Clendinnen, ‘The History Question: Who Owns the Past’ Quarterly Essay, no. 23 (2006): 2. For an example of conservative reactions to the original exhibitions created for the National Australian Museum see Rob Foot, ‘Rehabilitating Australia’s National Museum’ in Quadrant, 52, no. 10 (October 2008): 24–5. 2 Martin Harwit, Lobbying the Enola Gay (New York: Copernicus, 1996), viii, 361–6; Mike Wallace, ‘The Battle of the Enola Gay’ in Mike Wallace Mickey Mouse History and other Essays on American Memory (Temple University Press, 1996), 278–81; Catherine M. Lewis, The Changing Face of Public History: The Chicago Historical Society and the Transformation of an American Museum (Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005), 3–5. 3 Catherine Lewis, The Changing Face of Public History, 3–5. 4 Hilda Kean and Paul Ashton, ‘Introduction: People and their Pasts and Public History Today’ in Public History and Heritage Today: People and their Pasts, Hilda Kean and Paul Ashton, eds (Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 1. 5 As indeed Sturt Macintyre notes in The History Wars. Elkner, Making Archives, Making Histories, 277; Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 164. 2 behalf.6 Windschuttle’s publications thus not only resulted in battle lines being drawn between historians,7 they also questioned the professional integrity of academic historians in the eyes of a fascinated and very interested public.8

Known as the History Wars in Australia and the Culture Wars in the USA, these very public debates demonstrated two things in particular: first, that the public had a very real interest in its history, and second, that it had the right to question historians’ interpretations of the past, especially when they diverged from traditional narratives and understandings.9 As Stuart Macintyre has argued, however, academic historians were ill prepared for such scrutiny:

Unaccustomed to media attention, they feel chagrin when interlopers command the headlines and are inclined to respond with professional indignation. After Keith Windschuttle began his challenge on the practitioners of Aboriginal history, one of the less helpful replies was that he had no standing in the field.10

The damage caused to the standing of academic history in the public gaze as a result of these wars about culture, identity and our relationship with the past was considerable.11 Given this recent history, it was surprising that Phillip Island Nature Parks (hereafter PINP) approached the University of Melbourne with an offer to commission a PhD history of their heritage attraction, Churchill Island, in late 2006.12

6 Elkner notes Windschuttle argued ‘“Most readers, of course take historians’ evidence on trust. They have neither the time nor the expertise to go back to the archives…to check an author’s claims for authenticity.”’ Elkner, Making Archives, Making Histories, 278; Keith Windschuttle, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History. Vol. 1 Van Diemen’s Land 1803–1847 (Paddington, Macleay Press, 2002), 133. 7 Richard Waterhouse, The Vision Splendid: A Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia (Fremantle: Curtin University Press, 2005), 13, 14; James Boyce, ‘Fantasy Island’ in Whitewash: On Keith Windschuttle’s Fabrication of Aboriginal History, ed. Robert Manne (Melbourne: Black Inc. Agenda, 2003), 20–1. 8 Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 162–3. 9 These concerns were not limited to the United States. New Zealand also experienced significant debate surround the role of a national museum and its exhibits. Bain Attwood ‘Difficult Histories: The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the Treaty of Waitangi Exhibit’ in The Public Historian, 35, no.3 (August 2013): 54–55. 10 Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 14–15. 11 Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 164–7. 12 Personal communication with Keir Reeves, Department of History, 18 July 2007. 3

This thesis is the major outcome of what became the Churchill Island Project.13 An exploration of the intersections between the practices of community engagement, academia and history, it responds to the challenges thrown up by the History Wars and the Churchill Island Project by making a history of settlement that is both academically critical and publicly accepted. It is first to last an exercise in public history. Its style is highly reflexive, the purpose of this being to demonstrate not only that such histories can be made, but to provide a useful example of how this can be achieved. The importance of this demonstration aspect of the thesis cannot be too strongly emphasised. As the cadet on the front lines making critical history in the public realm, I found many tales of failure, and few of success. Those few that offered hope failed to demonstrate the actual mechanics of negotiating history making with public communities. The structuring of this thesis is both a response to these frustrations of working at the leading edge, and a sincere attempt to spare those who follow the agony of ‘learning through doing’ in high-risk public history projects like the Churchill Island Project that must also answer to academic prescriptions.14

This thesis will demonstrate how historians can make critical examinations of the past that are accepted and used by both the academy and the general public. Stuart Macintyre has noted that for many members of the general public, ‘the role of the history profession [is] unclear.’15 Macintyre here was speaking of the role of academic historians in particular, and one of the things that the Churchill Island Project has highlighted is just how poorly academic history is understood outside of the academy. In completing this thesis I have heavily engaged with my public stakeholders to ensure that they have understood the product they were receiving. More than this, I have worked to shape this thesis so that it answers the questions of most interest to them. Thus, this thesis, whilst being composed in an academic style and in the format of an academic document, not only addresses topics of interest to the thesis’s stakeholders, it responds to this interest within the thesis as a written document.16 It does so substantively. This thesis is a dialogue, and it is my hope that the discussions it records between me and the Churchill Island Project’s stakeholders will ensure that my

13 Cate Elkner used similar wording in her thesis and I am indebted to her for her example of how to lucidly explain a PhD thesis shaped by the demands of multiple stakeholders. Elkner, Making Archives, Making Histories, 3–27. 14 In my completion seminar the Chair Julie Fedor asked if there were any lessons that the university could learn from projects like mine. My response was ‘Two words: Risk Management.’ Completion Seminar University of Melbourne, 9 March 2015. 15 Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 16. 16 In some instances, these topics or interests are included in text, but in others, footnotes and appendices have been more appropriate places for these communications. 4 history of Churchill Island will be understood by, and be of use to, my academic and public stakeholders alike.

As a written document, this thesis is composed in response to three main stimuli: first, a desire for a rigorous history of Churchill Island with contributions from numerous stakeholders; second, that such a history should be accepted and used by those who desired it in the first instance; and third, that this history should be a ‘good’ history in the academic sense of that term, and contribute to scholarly discussion. It has needed to achieve these goals within a single product. In contrast to comparable projects where the funding partner has desired an outcome produced through the research process—for example an archive or the collection of oral testimonies—PINP commissioned a written history, one that took the form of an academic PhD thesis.17 This thesis has therefore married public stakeholder desires to trace the history of Churchill Island; how it has been variously imagined, constructed and used during exploration and settlement history, and later memorialised as a heritage site, with the need for a PhD thesis to contribute academic discussions and increase knowledge in a way that is translatable outside the bounds of this project. It does so through its contribution to academic discussions regarding the practice of public history and its use of critical theory and methodologies including settler colonialism, space, landscape and microstoria. The incorporation of these academic concerns within this thesis has greatly increased my capacity to examine Churchill Island’s past and what it has meant. The public history nature of the Churchill Island Project usefully complemented this process by providing me with mechanisms that have enabled me to discuss these ideas with the project’s public stakeholders, and negotiate their meaning with them.

Introducing an Island

Part of the Boon Wurrung’s traditional lands, Churchill Island is situated near the township of Newhaven, Phillip Island, in Victoria’s Western Port. This tiny island, a mere fifty-seven hectares in total, is linked to its larger cousin, Phillip Island, by means of a single-span bridge that arches across the narrow band of salt water that separates the two islands. From its south eastern tip, Churchill Island slowly emerges from the sea amidst a tangle of mangroves, after which the land rises to form the large hill that visually dominates the island. The island’s

17 Elkner, Making Archives, Making Histories, 7. 5 opposing north western shoreline is ringed by a line of small cliffs, clothed in native Moonah, a salt tolerant Melaleuca noted for the intricacy of its twisted boughs. The central portion of the island is covered in improved pasture, interrupted by the occasional windbreak of exotic pines and less commonly by native Sheoak. At its core lies a heritage precinct, complete with nineteenth-century buildings and gardens, as well as some distinctly more modern elements designed to satisfy the desires of international tourists and children, who pay for the privilege.18 The precinct, however, takes up only a relatively small area. The vast bulk of the island can be visited free of charge and the paths that trace its shoreline are a popular site for local walkers and the occasional cyclist. A visitor centre that serves as a cafe, gift shop and ticket office mediates the transition between these two spaces. Churchill Island’s beauty in years of good rain is considerable, and it is worth noting that the island’s panoramic views of Western Port not only entrance present day visitors, but also considerably impressed Lieutenant James Grant in 1801.19 Although the island has never been inscribed for its picturesque qualities, its soft beauty forms an integral part of the ‘Jewel’ of Western Port’s appeal.20

Today, Churchill Island is run as a heritage tourist attraction. It forms part of a portfolio of land management by PINP, the fourth in a series of managements charged with caring for the island since it was transformed into a public place in 1976.21 As an autonomous statutory government organisation, subject to the Minister for the Department of Environment and Climate Change, PINP is self-funding and self-directed, its long-term strategy governed by a board of management and its day-to-day running by the Chief Executive Officer and a number of professional staff. Its self-proclaimed goal since 1998 has been ‘international

18 These include a petting zoo of farm animals and a wallaby enclosure, the second of which is open only to visitors from charted buses. Both have proved extremely popular with their target audiences. 19 In a recent documentary made by the Friends of Churchill Island Society, members of the working horse association commented that one of the major reasons they enjoyed coming to Churchill Island was the views they could enjoy whilst performing demonstrations. 20 The original wording is ‘Churchill Island seems set as a jewel’ in Western Port, which appears to date from a rail travel advertisement/ interest piece in the Argus. Telemachus, ‘In South Gippsland. On the Great Southern Railway. The Blackwood Reserve.’ Argus, 1 March 1890, p. 4. The Victorian Conservation Trust translated it simply as Jewel of Western Port. 21 The Victorian Conservation Trust was responsible for the island from 1976 to 1982. The management was then passed over to the National Parks Service (Victoria) for two years, after which the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment was given charge of the island during one of the many departmental and ministerial re-organisations to befall it in 1984. Churchill Island became part of Phillip Island Nature Parks in 1996. John Knott, Chairman, letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer, E.D., M.P., Premier, Treasurer and Minister of the Arts, 10 February 1976, CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 6 excellence in eco-tourism’.22 In addition to running Churchill Island, PINP is also responsible for the management of the Penguin Parade and the surrounding Summerlands Estate, the Koala Centre, Seal Rocks (the Nobbies), Conservation Hill and the Rhyll Inlet (formerly known as the NITS), and Cape Woolami. As a heritage site, Churchill Island is therefore something of an odd fit in what is otherwise a nature-based portfolio. This is aptly demonstrated by the fact that this thesis, which was commissioned and co-sponsored by PINP, is the only research to date that they have sponsored in the humanities.23 This thesis has responded to Churchill Island’s designation as a heritage site by investigating the most prevalent interpretations of this site’s value.

Churchill Island’s Heritage Interpretations

The Heritage Council of Victoria (hereafter HCV), the statutory authority responsible for protecting Victoria’s heritage and maintaining the Victorian Heritage Register, together with Heritage Victoria, last updated their heritage assessment of Churchill Island in 1998.24 The Statement of Significance they provide for Churchill Island is worth quoting in full, as it details the reasons why the site has been protected as a heritage site.

Churchill Island, Westernport Bay off Phillip Island, includes the entire island and linking timber bridge, with all buildings and objects located on it. The island was first ‘settled’ by Lieutenant James Grant in 1801, when a cottage was erected and garden planted, no evidence of which remains. The present, symmetrical weatherboard homestead dates possibly from the 1860s, parts may be older. There is a cannon from the warship Shenandoah (1865).

22 Biosis Research in association with R. Crocker and Associates, Phillip Island Nature Park Draft Management Plan October 1988, Cowes, Phillip Island, Phillip Island Nature Park Board of Management, 1988, p. 5. CIA, PINP. 23 One early discussion addressed my desire to publish material throughout my PhD, which thoroughly confused and somewhat alarmed my industry sponsors. Having only previously sponsored works of science, where journal articles are more usually published after the completion of a thesis, PINP sought reassurance that I would send all material concerning the management of Churchill Island to PINP for consultation prior to publishing, as they would not have had an opportunity to peruse my thesis. Email Correspondence with Mark Manteit, CEO PINP, 2 November 2009. 24 Heritage Council of Victoria, Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure, Victorian State Government, ‘Victorian Heritage Register: Churchill Island’ Victorian Heritage Database, Victoria Heritage Register Number, H1614 available at http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/vhd/heritagevic#detail_places;4852 accessed 14 February 2015. 7

Churchill Island, Westernport bay off Phillip Island, is the site of the first European settlement in Victoria, James Grant of the Lady Nelson having built a cottage and planted wheat, corn and a garden in 1801. The island is unique in the history of Victoria and was until recently the only privately-owned island in Victoria. Churchill Island is a most important landscape element in Westernport bay. The present homestead is representative of homestead building and is unusual for its planning. The island has been acquired by the government of Victoria for public uses. Future plans are unclear. Current landscape is pastoral.25

Leaving aside the repetition in this description,26 the HCV’s assessment of Churchill Island’s significance to the State of Victoria very clearly argues that the site is of special significance because it was ‘the site of the first European settlement in Victoria’.27 In addition, the Statement of Significance also includes an assessment that the site’s ‘homestead’ dates from the 1860s, and is ‘both representative of homestead building and is unusual for its planning’ a statement that must be considered somewhat ambiguous. The Statement of Significance also argues that the island is ‘unique in the history of Victoria and until recently the only privately-owned island in Victoria.’28 Lastly, the Statement of Significance on Victorian Heritage Register argues that the cannon on Churchill Island was‘from the warship Shenandoah (1865).’29 This thesis refutes these assessments.

The National Trust, Victoria (hereafter NTV) also has an assessment of the site available through the Victorian Heritage Database. This assessment of Churchill Island and the adjacent Swan Bay, which predates the island’s transfer from private to public ownership, argues that the ‘special historical, ecological and visual qualities of Churchill Island and the surrounding bay combine to make this area highly significant, both within the Western Port Region and within the State.’30 The NTV further argues that

25 Ibid. 26 Possibly a result of Churchill Island’s 1988 listing on the Amendment of Register of Government Buildings published in Victoria Government Gazette no. G39, 12 October 1988 p. 3095 and its subsequent move to the Victorian Heritage Register in 1998. Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Churchill Island was classified by the NTV in 1973. National Trust, ‘National Trust: Churchill Island and Swan Bay’ Victorian Heritage Database, National Trust File Number L10088 available at http://vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/vhd/heritagevic#detail_places;70350, accessed 14 February 2015. 8

The history of settlement and the important early sites are not always well documented and rarely does such an important site come into public ownership. Victorians now have an outstanding opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the settlement process.31

The NTV’s assessment very clearly emphasises that Churchill Island’s significance as a heritage site lies in its ability to provide an understanding of the settlement process due to its early connections with this process. This assessment of Churchill Island’s significance is not based on any specific feature of the island, although the ‘early’ description of the site presumably relates to the activities of the crew of the Lady Nelson on the island in 1801.32 The assessment does, however, suggest that Churchill Island’s ‘subtle beauty’ encourages reflection upon ‘the vision of the early settlers’ and ‘perceptions of the Australian environment’.33 This thesis has responded to this less specific assessment of Churchill Island’s heritage significance by examining the presumed connection between the early activities of the crew of the Lady Nelson and its later settlement in the 1860s, and by placing these activities within their historical contexts. In doing so I argue that the NTV’s belief that there existed a strong connection between the early activities of the crew of the Lady Nelson and its later settlement in the 1860s is overly simplistic and inaccurate, but I uphold their assessment that Churchill Island is a useful site in understanding the settlement process in Victoria.

In addition to refuting and recasting these ‘official’ assessments of Churchill Island’s heritage significance I also examine the island’s interpretations by its heritage managements. As PINP’s website on Churchill Island notes, Churchill Island is a heritage site now visited by ‘tens of thousands of visitors a year’.34 This being the case, many people will be more familiar with understandings and valuations promoted by Churchill Island’s managements than they would be its ‘official’ government designation by the HCV, or its independent counterpart, the NTV. While I explore Churchill Island’s changing heritage interpretations over time in greater detail in the body of this thesis, it is worth encapsulating the interpretations of its first management, the Victorian Conservation Trust (hereafter VCT) as well of those of its current management, PINP, since this thesis has also responded to these

31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 PINP, ‘History’, Attractions: Churchill Island available at http://www.penguins.org.au/attractions/churchill- island/history accessed 14 February 2015. 9 valuations of Churchill Island’s worth. The VCT believed that Churchill Island was important because it had ‘close historical associations with the founding of [the Victorian] State’,35 and used the site as a means of demonstrating the impact settlers had on a presumed natural landscape, as well as a celebration of the achievements of its early ‘pioneers’. PINP presents Churchill Island as a ‘heritage farm’:36 ‘First walked by the Bunerong Aboriginal people’ and ‘continuously farmed’ since the ‘1850s’, and important because it was the ‘site of the first European agricultural pursuits in Victoria.’37 Similar to its examination of the Heritage Council of Victoria and the National Trust, this thesis questions and problematises these interpretations of Churchill Island’s historical worth.

In ‘Official and Vernacular Public History’, Erik Eklund argued that ‘One of the challenges for professional historians is to find an effective and inclusive way to disseminate their findings and build a greater appreciation for the past.’38 As a commissioned and therefore public history, this project has also had to grapple with this challenge, particularly in light of its format as an academic thesis, and its findings, which refute current understandings of Churchill Island as a heritage site. Such challenges, as Rebecca Conard’s work demonstrates, are hardly new, dating in the USA from at least the turn of the twentieth century.39 If anything, as Conard’s investigation of the early public history movement in the USA suggests, it is the very nature of such challenges that has helped ‘galvanise’ public historians like Benjamin Shambaugh ‘to prove the value of history in a modern society’,40 and these challenges continue to ensure that historians engage with a public to address concerns about the past and its meaning. As Conard argues, ‘The public history movement of the last three decades has been, and remains a complex phenomenon…First the public history movement has kindled a healthy debate on professionalism and professional ethics. Second,

35 Letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer from John Knott, Chairman, Victorian Conservation Trust. 18 May, 1973, p.1. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. David Lowenthal has described this concern with beginnings as ‘primordial’ heritage. According to Lowenthal, the primordial illustrates an interest in origins rather than ancientness—the question of age here is unimportant—what matters is the search for a beginning. David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 55. 36 PINP, Churchill Island Heritage Farm Brochure, 2008; PINP, ‘History’, Attractions: Churchill Island available at http://www.penguins.org.au/attractions/churchill-island/history accessed 14 February 2015. 37 Ibid. 38 Erik Eklund, ‘Official and Vernacular Public History: Historical Anniversaries and Commemorations in Newcastle, NSW’ Public History Review 14 (2007): 144. 39 Rebecca Conard, Benjamin Shambaugh and the Intellectual Foundation of Public History (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002), 4. 40 Ibid., 77. 10 the movement has caused historians to reconsider the bounds of historical scholarship’.41 This thesis has deeply engaged with these issues of professional ethics, the extent to which it is desirable to test the bounds of historical scholarship, and what constitutes ‘good’ history, in its efforts to produce a history of Churchill Island that is acceptable and useful to its twin sponsors, PINP and the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne (hereafter SHAPS).

As this thesis will make clear, the act of planting a garden and erecting a blockhouse on Churchill Island did not lead to the settlement of either Churchill Island specifically, or Victoria more generally by the British, continental Europeans or the Chinese.42 The example of Churchill Island demonstrates that settler colonialism may well depend on the prefiguring activities of explorers, but argues that these do not in and of themselves lead directly to settlement. The settlement of a space like Churchill Island had a far more complex genesis. While Churchill Island may not be a site of historical significance in the settlement story as the ‘official’ interpretations have assumed and promoted, an examination of its history is extremely productive because it challenges and refines previous assumptions about the nature of settlement. As this thesis will show, the example of Churchill Island suggests that the process of settlement was far more contingent and tenuous than has generally been acknowledged. Its expression or manifestation was also more complex than commonly presented, and included activities and projects of much greater variety than home making or farming. In this way, this case study of Churchill Island’s history promises to improve and deepen understandings of the settlement process.

41 Ibid., 168–9. 42 This thesis acknowledges the work of historians looking at Chinese Australian history, who have consistently argued that while many Chinese immigrants were sojourners, some remained in Australia and settled. This would appear to add a further layer of complexity to Lorenzo Veracini’s proposition that settler colonial society is composed not in a binary fashion, as promoted by Patrick Wolfe, but rather in a tri-partite form, with European settlers founding society, exogenous others living in that society but essentially lacking the influence to alter it in any significant manner, and of a disenfranchised minority indigenous population. In contrast to Veracini, who emphasised the relative powerlessness of exogenous others, such as the Chinese, historians of Chinese Australians have argued that Chinese settlers did in fact affect the society in which they settled, with a significant number actively involved in the settlement project, and thus in the creation of a settler colonial society. For further work on this front see Australian Historical Studies, Special Issue: Dragon Tails: New Perspectives in Chinese Australian History, 42, no 1 (March 2011), especially Keir Reeves and Tseen Khoo, ‘Dragon Tails: Re-interpreting Chinese Australian History’, 4 ; Sophie Couchman, ‘Making the Last Chinaman’, 89–91; Tseen Khoo and Rodney Noonan, ‘Wartime Fundraising by Chinese Australian Communities’, 93–4 and Keir Reeves and Benjamin Mountford, ‘Sojourning and Settling: Locating Chinese Australian History’, 113–4, 117–8, 122–4. 11

Chronicling Churchill Island and Local Opinion

While Churchill Island’s heritage interpretations have differed with respect to what the events of 1801 meant for island itself and the state of Victoria generally, they have been remarkably consistent in their presentation of the activities of the crew of the Lady Nelson’s crew as important. This has not been the case, however, with regard to the site’s incorporation into Victorian history. While early histories of Victoria placed great emphasis on the events of 1801 on the tiny island, the importance of these events have notably receded in recent times. Victoria’s centenary of settlement resulted in the production of a suitably celebratory narrative of progress, which highlighted Lieutenant James Grant’s special place in Victorian history: ‘Grant’, according to Victoria: The First Century, An Historical Survey, ‘secured the honour of being the first cultivator of the soil in Victoria’.43 Subsequent histories, however, have made rather less of this act. Don Garden’s Victoria, A History notes that Grant was ‘particularly impressed with Churchill Island, whose beauty and fertility caused him to plant a garden there and use it partly as a base’.44 Since Garden’s description of these activities, however, is preceded by the assertion that settlement occurred later in Victoria because Western Port and Port Phillip’s land in its ‘unimproved condition was fairly poor except for the western side of Port Phillip Bay’, it is fair to suggest that Garden includes the planting of a garden on Churchill Island more with a view to being thorough, rather than because he believed it constituted an act of historical importance or led to the later settlement of the state.45 Blainey’s History of Victoria does not even bother to mention the incident, although Grant’s voyage in the Lady Nelson from London through Bass Strait to Sydney is provided with a passing reference.46 Most recently James Boyce’s 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia ignores the issue of naval exploration entirely, and Western Port receives only a brief mention as a home to some of Bass Strait’s sealers.47 In the context of such diversity, it is worth noting the ‘durability’ of Victoria’s Centenary Committee’s interpretation, and its inculcation and preservation in ‘official’ heritage in spite of a swath of

43 Historical Sub-Committee of the Centenary Celebrations Council, Victoria: The First Century, An Historical Survey (Melbourne: Robertson and Mullens, 1934), 21. 44 Don Garden, Victoria, A History (Melbourne: Nelson, 1984), 15. 45 Ibid., 13. 46 Geoffrey Blainey, A History of Victoria (Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 16. 47 James Boyce, 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia (Collingwood: Black Inc., 2013, first published 2011), 10–12. 12 academic histories of Victoria that have questioned or more simply ignored Churchill Island’s place in a narrative of settlement.48

Smaller in scope and scale are a number of works that have more closely examined Churchill Island and its past. Of these the most important are June Cutter’s Churchill Island: A Special Place and Patricia Baird’s Churchill Island: History and Her Story, which position Churchill Island as their sole subject of interest.49 Cutter’s work is based on archival sources, local mythology and oral interviews and takes a format that has become the accepted method of presenting the island’s history: a social history narrated in a chronological fashion and divided by the contribution of each person of family group deemed to have made an impact on the island.50 Baird’s work adapted Cutter’s formula by focusing on the contributions of women and incorporating fiction after each section. Both Cutter and Baird were forced to grapple with a lack of archival source material. Cutter solves this issue by including of a number of interviews with twentieth-century inhabitants who were then still living, while Baird includes additions of imaginative fiction to supply period information and a sense of personality for each of her women.51 For the most part these works agree on the broader details of Churchill Island’s history within the format of person and contribution, though they differ in the details, particularly where family and oral tradition rather than written or pictorial sources are the basis for information. They also invoke aspects of the ‘pioneer’ legend, specifically framing settlement as an act of hardship for settlers.52 Richard Waterhouse has argued that ‘one of the roles of the pioneer legend was to insist the European

48 Eklund notes the ‘durability of older themes’ in celebration Newcastle’s’ past, something that mirrors the durability of older interpretations at Churchill Island. Eklund, ‘Official and Vernacular Public History’: 129. 49 Patricia Baird, Churchill Island, History and Her Story (Phillip Island: Self Published, 2007, second and revised edition, 2012), 19; June Cutter, Churchill Island: A Special Place. A Story of those who Chose Churchill Island as their Haven (Pakenham: South Eastern Independent Newspapers, 1994). 50 Ibid. Meetings and correspondence with my industry sponsors made plain that they hoped my thesis would contain stories and characters they could use for future heritage interpretations, which prior to (and perhaps after) the completion of my thesis were viewed through the lens of different eras of ownership. Minutes, Churchill Island PhD Meeting, Churchill Island, 7 May 2007; Email Correspondence with Mark Manteit, CEO PINP, 7 October 2009. Interestingly during an interview with the Amess family, Patricia Baird re-iterated this presentation of the island’s history commenting to Amess descendants that ‘I should tell you we are trying to establish a museum here, and having owned the island for such a long span of decades the Amess family is obviously very significant in that history.’ Amess family, Interviewed by Patricia Baird and Rebecca Sanders, Churchill Island 10 December 2012: 13:56–14:17. 51 Cutter, ‘Acknowledgements’ in A Special Place, vi; Carolyn Landon, ‘Preface’ in Baird, History and Her Story, 7; Amess Family, Interviewed by Patricia Baird, and Rebecca Sanders, Churchill Island 10 December 2012: 11:00. 52 John Hirst, ‘The Pioneer Legend’, Australian Historical Studies, 18 (October 1978): 316–7. 13 occupation of the interior was a peaceful process’,53 but Cutter and Baird’s histories of Churchill Island suggest a more complex picture: the sin of omission rather than deliberate obfuscation, one indeed that Baird attempted to answer in her inclusion a pre-settlement section.54 These specific histories of Churchill Island do not question the island’s official heritage or historical significance, but neither do they particularly promote it within their works, although Graham Pizzey’s earlier pamphlet Churchill Island: Victoria Conservation Trust explicitly argues for Churchill Island’s importance as a historic site.55

In addition to these rather specific histories are other secondary sources that also make recurring mention of Churchill Island within their pages, the most notable of which are Joshua Wicket Gliddon’s Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, and Valda Cole’s works, Western Port Pioneers and Preachers and Western Port Chronology.56 Gliddon’s work is not strictly a history, but it does include a historical section with information on Churchill Island, some of which has proved difficult to source and presumably depended on local memory, now vanished, and as a result, is unverifiable. In contrast to the almost time-capsule like quality of Gliddon’s free flowing descriptions and compilation of local notables’ efforts, Cole’s work is meticulous in both detail and attribution. Although inspired by family history and local residence, Pioneers and Preachers and especially Western Port Chronology are less personal histories, focused firmly on verifiable fact, and a good example of some of the better aspects of empirical methodologies when practised on the smaller scale. Cole’s careful scrutiny of maps in particular,57 has proved a useful example from which I have drawn heavily, as is evident in the fourth chapter of this thesis, ‘Making and Forgetting Churchill Island’. Useful also have been a number of regional histories that have helped me to

53 Richard Waterhouse, ‘Locating the New Social History: Transnational Historiography and Australian Local History’, Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society Vol. 95, Part 1 (June 2009): 6. 54 Baird, History and Her Story, 10–15. 55 Graham Pizzey, Churchill Island: Victoria Conservation Trust (Australia: Ogilvy and Mather, Australia, Pty. Ltd., 1976), 5–7. 56 Joshua Wickett Gliddon, Phillip Island in Picture and Story (Phillip Island: The Committee of Trust ‘Warley’ Bush Nursing Hospital, 1958); Valda Cole, Western Port: Pioneers and Preachers (Melbourne: The Hawthorn Press, 1975); Valda Cole, Western Port Chronology, 1799–1839: Exploration to Settlement (Hastings: Shire of Hastings Historical Society, 1984). 57 Evident also in her edited publications of primary sources. Harry and Valda Cole, Mr Bass’s Western Port: The Whaleboat Journey (Hastings: Hastings-Western Port Historical Society in conjunction with South Eastern Historical Association, 1997) especially 57–62; Valda Cole, ed., The Summer Survey: The Log of the Lady Nelson 1801–1802: John Murray (Hastings: Hastings-Western Port Historical Society, 2001), 49, 88. 14 contextualise Churchill Island’s history within specific temporal and geographic frameworks.58

Written histories have not been the only influence or factor that has shaped this very public history of Churchill Island. As noted above, the Churchill Island Project has been defined by its nature as a public history project. This being the case, I have not only sought to contextualise my history of Churchill Island in response to previous written histories and its nature as a heritage site, I have also sought to respond to local opinion not recorded in written formats.59 First and foremost is the idea of Churchill Island as an unknown. In spite of two published books, interviews and discussions within a group of people who are best described as the Churchill Island Community revealed that the memory of the ‘private’ island persists amongst older members of the community, and indeed, PINP continues to occasionally market Churchill Island as ‘our secret island’.60 The second persistent presentation of the island is that of it being the site of Victoria’s first crop of wheat, a story which has

58 Christine Grayden, An Island Worth Conserving: A History of the Phillip Island Conservation Society 1968- 2008 (Cowes, Phillip Island: Phillip Island Conservation Society, 2008); Ernest Scott, ‘The Early History of Western Port.—Part II’, The Victorian Historical Magazine 6, no. 2 (December 1917); J.S. Cumpston, First Visitors to Bass Strait (Canberra: Roebuck Society, 1973); Keith Bowden The Western Port Settlement and its Leading Personalities (Cheltenham: South Eastern Historical Association, c1970); Jean Edgecombe, Phillip Island and Western Port (Sydney: J.M. Edgecombe, 1989); David and Jocelyn Bradley, eds, Within the Plains of Paradise: A Brief Social History of Rhyll, Phillip Island (Melbourne: Rhyll History Project Committee, 1997); Rooth Gooch, Frontier French Island (Windsor: Prahran Mechanics Institute, 2006); Thomas Horton and Kenneth Morris, The Andersons of Western Port: The Discovery and Exploration of Western Port, Victoria, and the Life of the First Settler in Eastern Australia, and His Two Brothers, Hugh and Thomas. From 1797 to 1903 (Bass: Bass Valley Historical Society, 1983); South Gippsland Pioneers’ Association, The Land of the Lyrebird: A Story of Early Settlement in the Great Forest of South Gippsland: Being a Description of the Big Scrub in its Virgin State with its Birds and Animals, and of the Adventures and Hardships of its Early Explorers and Prospectors: Also Accounts by the Settlers of Clearing, Settlement and Development of the Country. 2nd Ed. (Korumburra: The Shire of Korumburra for the South Gippsland Development League, 1966, original publication 1920); Barry Collett, Wednesdays Closest to the Full Moon: A History of South Gippsland (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1994); Leonie Elizabeth Plunket, South Gippsland’s Settlement and the Early Surveyors Masters Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2006; Linda Barraclough and Debra Squires, Steps in Time, a Gippsland Chronology to 1899 Bairnsdale: Kapana Press, 1992); John Wells, Colourful Tales of Old Gippsland (Drouin: Landmark Educational Supplies, 1984, originally published by Rigby, 1977); Hugh Copeland, The Path of Progress: From the Forests of Yesterday to the Homes of Today (Warragul: Shire of Warragul, 1934). 59 While it is common within theses inspired by local or family stories to reference these factors, it is far rarer for authors to seriously examine how these oral traditions or conversations provide not only motivation, but also shape their writing. Jillian Wheeler’s chapter ‘The Construction of Linton’s History’ and conclusion, when read together, offer one such rare picture. Jillian Wheeler Who Owns Linton’s Past: Multiple Histories in a Victorian Goldfields Town PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne 2009, 221, 235–6, 252, 257–261. 60 Interview with Cherry McFee, 6 August 2007; Le McLennan, ‘Victoria’s Secret: An Island of Pleasure’, Traveller, posted 27 August 2012, www. traveller.com.au/victorias-secret-an-island-of-pleasure-20cna, accessed 13 September 2013. This perhaps built on Gliddon’s interpretation of Churchill Island as an ‘Island of Mystery’. Gliddon, Phillip Island in Picture and Story, 196. 15 diminished somewhat in relation to the progress of this project within the Churchill Island Community, but which still elicits interest from Friends of Churchill Island Society (hereafter FOCIS) members, particularly with regard to its location, and which at present remains Heritage Victoria’s inscription of the site.61 The third common presentation of Churchill Island is that currently serving as its interpretation to visiting tourists—that it is a ‘heritage farm’. I originally presumed that this last interpretation was popular with members of both FOCIS and Phillip Island and District Historical Society (hereafter PIDHS) because of increased urban development of Phillip Island over the last twenty years,62 with the idea that Churchill Island stood in landscape and lifestyles no longer extant, or if extant, then less visible and less able to be visited. When questioned more closely, however, FOCIS members asserted quite different and rather less locally focused reasons for valuing the farming interpretation. The first was that they valued a farming interpretation because they believed that farming had been an important means through which Australia was settled and that it was important to ‘educate’ both international and domestic visitors about this ‘fact’.63 The second was that it was important to educate an increasingly urbanised population about where their food comes from and the rural life that underpins this.64 Members of both societies, and some interviewees for the project, mentioned their approval of this interpretation, which can show visitors what their lives or the lives of their parents used to be like.

Taken together, these secondary sources have dictated a number of sub-questions that the thesis has needed to answer in order to make a meaningful contribution to both the written and oral traditions that have preceded it. These include questions relating to the perception of Churchill Island: as a secret place, as the site of the first (wheat) crop, and as a site associated with farming. They also include questions of its positioning within temporal and geographic contexts: how it relates to other early British activities within the Bass Strait (and Westernport) region, and how it fits within broader settlement narratives of Westernport and

61 In 2007 Jill and Fred Allen, then Secretary and President of FOCIS, asked if I knew anything about Palaeobotany and if I could find the location of ‘Grant’s Garden’. In 2012, David Maunders, then FOCIS newsletter editor, asked if it FOCIS could pursue an archaeological scan of Churchill Island to determine the location of the garden. Field Notes, Tuesday 20 March 2007; Email Correspondence with Mark Manteit, FOCIS and Graeme Burgan Re location of Garden on Churchill Island 5 February 2008; Field Notes FOCIS Meeting 10 November 2012. 62 Although as Christine Grayden noted in her comments on a previous draft, ‘Most of the land mass of Phillip Island is still farming land.’ Christine Grayden, Comments by Christine Grayden on Rebecca’s CI Thesis, February 2015, 3. 63 Anita Brady, ‘Presentation of Lovell Chen’s progress on drafting a Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island’, Field Notes, FOCIS meeting, Churchill Island, 14 February, 2015. 64 Ibid. 16

South Gippsland. Last but not least, this thesis attempts to answer some specific questions raised about details of Churchill Island’s history. What is the real story behind the Pickersgill and Rogers families’ settlement of Churchill Island? How was it used by Samuel Amess and his decedents? What is the provenance of the cannon, at one time used as the island’s logo? And where is the location of the 1801 garden?

Sources: Issues and Utilisation

This thesis has been self-consciously styled in a reflexive fashion. I have done so in order that I might better reveal the reflexive practice that has underpinned my completion of the Churchill Island Project. In response to my frustrations at the lack of sustained interrogation of the mechanisms of practising public history elsewhere, I have taken great care to not only enunciate how I have practised public history within the Churchill Island Project, I have documented how this was achieved. It occurred to me very early in the Churchill Island Project that no standard exists in the field of public history with regards to discussing how engagement with public stakeholders affects a project: the subject of how such influences should be documented does not seem to have arisen. I have tried to address this perceived gap in the methodology of practising public history within this thesis by documenting as much as possible when and how stakeholders’ influence manifested. My determination resulted in a thesis that has two kinds of primary sources: those that I used in making my history of Churchill Island, and those that documented how this history was made.

The sources used to document the process of completing the Churchill Island Project, including this thesis, comprise my correspondence, notebooks and drafts. Although I had originally hoped to document my engagement with both public and academic stakeholders in the form of a diary that could have been included as an appendix, this proved to be rather too ambitious. As I discuss in the first chapter of this thesis, reflexive practice is very difficult when one lacks experience, and this combined with the difficulties inherent in the Churchill Island Project meant the diary I began petered out very quickly: I simply could not express the fears that plagued me for much of this project because in the early stages of the Churchill Island Project I was terrified that they might somehow fall into the hands of my commissioner, PINP, and result in the project’s cancellation. In addition, a lack of experience meant that the composition of the early journals was also problematic, as they were not as professional as they needed to be in tone and content and included personal asides that were 17 not only irrelevant to the project, but were not fit for wider publication.65 As the project progressed, I also realised that such a format could never have included any of the correspondence that exerted such a huge effect on my direction of the project, nor the chapter drafts, conference papers and public presentations that allowed me, eventually, to engage in real dialogue with the project’s stakeholders about history and how it should be made. The result was something like an unsorted personal archive, which like any archive could never describe the totality of what had occurred, but which did record, even if only partially and very subjectively, something of the process of completing the Churchill Island Project.66 Such a Hydra was not only too big to fit into an appendix (quite apart from the fact it is without a finding aid), but parts of its material was not appropriate for publication. I have therefore referred to its material in much the same manner that I would any other archive, either by quoting portions of it in the body of this thesis (which I was careful to send to stakeholders for approval first), or referenced in my footnotes as appropriate.

With regard to sources actually documenting Churchill Island’s past the challenges lay primarily in the lack of primary sources available to the researcher. The production of an academic thesis in the field of history requires there to be adequate sources to support its contentions. Public stakeholders, however, soon informed me that not one of the island’s numerous settlers had left a diary of their experiences on the island, nor were there any letters known to exist.67 Indigenous records were similarly slim. There were verbal references to a shell midden on Churchill Island but no documentation of it, and tools in the PIDHS’s museum collection have yet to be provenanced correctly (at this point none are believed to have originated from Churchill Island). In addition there was an undocumented reference to an Aboriginal couple working on neighbouring Phillip Island during the 1850s and 60s, and a few references in Protector William Thomas’s journals and letters. The Churchill Island Archives PINP presumed would form the basis of my research pertained mostly to the management of the site after it was transformed into public land in 1976, aside from a few unprovenanced photographs and newspaper clippings. The oral interviews public stakeholders placed much importance on also failed to yield the detailed information I

65 Nor did it occur to me that it would require editing and approval from everyone mentioned within it in much the same manner as oral interview transcripts if I was to maintain the ethical standard I had set for the project. 66 Indeed, when I have consulted this ‘archive’ I made as a by-product of my desire for a really good reflexively public history, I was constantly surprised by what wasn’t included. 67 Field Notes, Meetings, Churchill Island. The only diarist I found to have visited the island after its initial exploration recorded nothing more than its rainfall during his visit, and the sheering of some sheep. John W.B. Amess, Diaries, 1877–1905 SLV, La Trobe Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 12806. 18 needed: many of the interviewees were just too old to remember that far back, too many generations removed. Barring my interview with former manager Carroll Schulz, and to a lesser extent Pickersgill descendant Laurie Thompson, they also lacked access to any primary sources of their own that could have assisted with my research. Our thought that the landscape itself might serve as a historical source was also complicated by my research into the Churchill Island Archives, and interviews with Carroll and Amy Schulz, which revealed just how much the property had been altered since it came into public hands. One of the few bright notes, other than records pertaining to the island’s public management, was the existence of a journal of the island’s first British explorer. I had a beginning and an end, but no middle. This confused public stakeholders, since two histories of the island were already in existence, and I found myself having to explain the need for good history to return to the source, and not simply recycle the interpretations of others.

While secondary histories provided some important pointers of where I could search for individual and piecemeal scraps of primary data, especially in relation to land and government records, it was the revolution in digitisation of Australian cultural collections that made the full thesis possible. The soft release of the National Library of Australia’s (hereafter NLA) newspaper digitisation project (later Trove) in March 2007,68 and the logistical and financial constraints of uploading such huge quantities of content may have meant that it was nearly three years before my searches started yielding reasonable quantities of data, but the ability to search specifically on Churchill Island, or the names of people I knew to be associated with it, proved invaluable, as did later digitisation projects undertaken by state libraries and archives.69 One of the major hurdles confronting historians now is how to best utilise such data, and how to keep up with advances in software development enabling them to do so: applications like QuerryPic by Tim Sherratt have been allowing researchers to save and graph their research results since 2013.70 This revolution in the digitisation of Australian

68 Which occurred in March 2007.‘Mapping Australia’s culture where Google fears to tread’ Australian Personal Computer, online magazine, published 28 April 2010, available at http://apcmag.com/trove-mapping-australias- culture-where-google-fears-to-tread.htm accessed 2 December 2014; John Huxley ‘You are here—maps that define a nation’ Sydney Morning Herald 6 March 2008. 69 In addition to the digitisation of maps and other images, firstly through Picture Australia, and then individually through state libraries and Trove, the State Library of Victoria digitised the Victorian Government Gazette as I was in the process of using the bound copies of the record at another institution. 70 Although such applications still require individual checking to ensure that all the hits listed are actually relevant, they return fewer false hits my than ordinary Trove searches conducted between 2008 and 2013. Making an exact phrase search for ‘Churchill Island’, for example still includes occasional references to Winston Churchill and islands in results from the 1940s, this is a great improvement however, on the scores, or even hundreds of false hits I acquired when I first began using the NLA newspaper search function. 19 records greatly encouraged the use of non-traditional sources like newspapers, maps and other images in this thesis, although not all of these sources were acquired in this fashion.71 These non-traditional sources have been combined with an array of more traditional archival records such as pastoral run files and government publications like the Victorian Government Gazette72 and ships logs available in Australian Joint Copying Project.73 The nature of these records, which generally reflected the use of Churchill Island, married well with public stakeholder interest in the island’s historical landscapes and land use practices, as well as those of a more general public composed of the island’s visitors and those with an interest in its history during the twentieth century, but rarely facilitated the kind of detailed characterisation that PINP hoped for to further improve visitor experience.

Understanding Churchill Island: A Guide to Chapters

This thesis is essentially divided into two parts. Chapters One to Three delineate the methodologies and influences through which the major questions of this thesis were determined. Chapters Four to Six present answers to these questions. As research conducted into Churchill Island’s use as a heritage site demonstrated that Churchill Island’s colonial nineteenth-century past was of greater interest than its twentieth-century history, I have chosen to concentrate on this period, although it is worth noting that my research found that patterns established in the nineteenth century continued into the twentieth, although in varying orders (i.e. they did not form a linear progression, but rather a template from which one could select the most appropriate option).

Chapter One, ‘A Public History PhD’ explains why a public history methodology was adopted in response to the Churchill Island Research Project. The framing of the thesis within public history methodology and practice was not only due to the fact that it was a commissioned work. Various stakeholders’ expectations, and their ability to enforce or encourage me to consider these expectations, resulted in a thesis in which some of its findings have been co-produced. During the course of this project stakeholders have been given the

71 Photographs used in Chapter Six for example are drawn from the picture archives of the Department of Sustainability and The Environment, who graciously allowed me to create my own digital copies from their slides. 72 Now digitised through the State Library of Victoria. 73 Which has yet to make the transition from microfilm to digitisation at the time of this thesis’s submission.http://www.nla.gov.au/microform-australian-joint-copying-project accessed 10 January 2015. 20 power to challenge my findings, and I have considered their responses and addressed their concerns prior to submitting this thesis for examination. As ‘A Public History PhD’ explains, however, the process of sharing inquiry and authority with my stakeholders involved much more than simply ‘genuflecting to the people’.74 Sharing inquiry and authority with stakeholders more closely resembled a semi-continuous dialectic in which stakeholders, including myself, became increasingly open about our opinions on Churchill Island’s past, and simultaneously more willing to consider alternative points of view.

Chapter Two, ‘Augmenting a Public History Approach’, explains the ways in which the project’s framework of shared inquiry, shared authority and reflexive practice was enriched through the use of academic theories and methodologies. Katrine Barber has argued for the importance of a critical approach in making public history, stating that ‘shared authority built a solid foundation for approaching partnered work...but it is not enough; it must be augmented’.75 ‘Augmenting a Public History Approach’ explains the form this augmentation took in this thesis—specifically my use of microstoria, settler colonialism, and writings about space and landscape—all of which helped to shape this history of Churchill Island into something that is different from previous histories, and which opened up new perspectives on Churchill Island’s history and its place within Australia’s settlement story.

The Third chapter of this thesis begins the story of Churchill Island. This beginning, however, does not revolve around the story of its first settlers, visitors or peoples. Rather, ‘Heritage Site: Genesis and Successive Transformations’ addresses Churchill Island’s transformation into a public space and heritage site. It does so in response to two stimuli. The first is my desire, identified in Chapter One, that the thesis address the concerns of a general public, as well as those of the thesis’s identified public and academic stakeholders. I do so not by employing a social science methodology, but rather through the tools of the historian: seeking to identify Churchill Island’s historical landscapes so as to document the general public’s response to them, not only in the present, but over time. The second is Henri Lefebvre’s injunction, identified in Chapter Two, that in tracing the genesis of a space, one should begin by ‘starting from the present and working our way back to the past and then

74 Tracye Matthews interviewed by Catherine Lewis in Lewis, The Changing Face of Public History, 109. 75 Katrine Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty: Building Capacity for Partnerships with Indigenous Nations’ The Public Historian 35, no. 4 (November 2013): 26. 21 retracing our steps’.76 Lefebvre’s words might at first seem counterintuitive, but my own experience with Churchill Island as a place, space and landscape suggests that it is difficult to ignore the effect of the present in our imagining of the past. Indeed, as this chapter argues, heritage sites by their very nature are as much products of the present as they are of the past they purport to represent. This is an important point, as it explains why the changing heritage landscape of Churchill Island, with its homestead, cottages, heritage garden and more recent ‘heritage’ farm additions, have so forcefully shaped understandings and valuations of the site over the last thirty-five years. Since the public history framing of the project dictated that my analysis of Churchill Island and its past should address and interrogate popular understandings of Churchill Island’s past, this chapter usefully identifies the most pervasive interpretations of Churchill Island’s past. Doing so allowed me to further refine the subject matter selected through a process of shared inquiry with the project’s public stakeholders into a more manageable set of questions, which are analysed using the academic theories and methodologies introduced in Chapter Two.

Chapter Four, ‘Making and Forgetting Churchill Island’, begins the process of answering the major questions of the thesis that have been identified in previous chapters. It responds to the pervasive interpretation of Grant and the 1801 garden as an important moment in Victoria’s settlement story. Taking its cue not only from Lefebvre, but also from writers such as Paul Carter, it examines the manner in which Churchill Island was transformed from a Boon Wurrung space into a colonial space. Rather than halting its examination of the historical record at the moment of creation, however, it continues its interrogation of the process of making colonial space by placing the act of creation into a longer historical context. By doing so, I argue that the virtual disappearance of Churchill Island from the historical record suggests that the construction of a permanent settler colonial space was in fact a far more contingent process than has previously been acknowledged. This chapter therefore argues that the transformation of Churchill Island from a Boon Wurrung space to a colonial space was one that allowed for the possibility of future settlement, but did not certify it.

Chapter Five, Settling an Island: Westernport Run to Island Home responds to the confusion that exists in previous works and public stakeholder understandings about the nature of Churchill Island’s settlement: specifically how and why it occurred. It utilises

76 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, translated by Donald Nicholas-Smith (Oxford and Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell, 1991, original publication in French 1974), 66. 22 microstoria to closely examine the available sources to argue that Churchill Island’s settlement was effected through a diverse range of activities, only one of which was home ownership. It also places Churchill Island’s settlement within its historical context to explain why Churchill became a desirable location for settlement sometime between the late 1850s and early 1860s. In doing so it continues the work of the previous chapter, examining the ways in which squatters and settlers, unlike the explorers who preceded them, could and did successfully transform Churchill Island into a permanent settler colonial space.

The Sixth Chapter of this thesis, Making a Seaside Retreat: An Expression of Confidence, argues that Churchill Island’s transformation into a site of health and leisure during the 1870s and 1880s demonstrates the confidence settlers felt in the settlement project; and that it was not only worthwhile to chase and obtain cultural achievement, but to do so in formats that spoke of longevity and permanency. In response to stakeholder interest in Churchill Island’s history of farming, I also examine the manner in which activities like this continued on Churchill Island, but were added to and reframed as cultural pursuits, designed to demonstrate learning, taste, wealth and adherence to the morals and values of settler colonial society, as well as provide outlets for individual expression.

The Conclusion: The Churchill Island Project: A Public History Success Story responds to stakeholder concerns identified throughout the project, specifically that my research could undermine Churchill Island’s historical significance. It argues that the evidence presented in the thesis demonstrates that while Churchill Island may not be a site of significance in the manner that has previously been assumed, its history provides a rich example of the complexity of Victoria’s settlement history. Its demarcation and subsequent use as a heritage site is therefore potentially very productive indeed, since it proffers a means through which large numbers of people can understand or deepen their understanding of the complexity of the settler colonial project and its purpose. 23

Chapter One: A Public History PhD Unlike other PhD projects that seek to engage with a broader public, the project to write a history of Churchill Island did not originate from a desire to engage with the past of my home town or family,77 nor did it form part of a larger public history project directed by my supervisors or result from community engagement work by my university.78 Rather, it was the client, PINP, who approached the University of Melbourne with an offer to commission a PhD to be specifically written about the history of one of their attractions, Churchill Island. Following my submission of interest and successful panel interview with the Department of History at the University of Melbourne, I was informed that I would need to meet with PINP and secure their support before the position could be formally offered.79 The meeting with PINP at Churchill Island, however, was not the rubber stamp process that I suspect the Department of History had anticipated. From PINP’s perspective it was an interview of equal weighting, and one that probably would have resulted in the vetoing of my candidature had I not impressed.80

This chapter will look at the manner in which the public history nature of this PhD affected the composition of this thesis and my management of the project as a whole and offered exciting opportunities to transform stakeholders’ views and beliefs about Churchill Island through the application of shared inquiry and shared authority. It will argue that PINP’s expectations and the power to enforce them as the project’s commissioner, together with my interactions with other stakeholders, necessitated the adoption of a public history approach. I will begin by providing some essential background regarding the nature of public history, before looking in greater detail at three key concepts to emerge from the field and shape its practice: reflective practice, shared inquiry, and shared authority. I will then introduce the project’s stakeholders and

77 Wheeler, Who Owns Linton’s Past, 221, 235–6, 252, 257–261. See also Plunket, South Gippsland’s Settlement and the Early Surveyors. 78 Fiona Lee Davis, Colouring Within the Lines: Colonialism and the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Station, 1888–1960s, PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2010, 6. 79 Email from Mark Manteit to Eileen Rebecca Sanders, Fwd: Churchill Island Candidate, 14 March 2007. 80 The second interview also comprised a panel, Mark Manteit PINP CEO and FOCIS President and Secretary respectively, Fred and Jill Allen. Email from Andrew May to Eileen Rebecca Sanders, Churchill Island, 14 March 2007.

24 their connection with the project. ‘A Four Phase Project’ explains why I chose to utilise a public history approach, my experiences in sharing inquiry and authority, some of the problems I encountered in doing so, and the means through which I attempted to solve these problems.

Defining Public History, the Story So Far…

As Jeremey Black’s Using History illustrates, the term public history can and has been broadly defined as ‘the use of history by states and civil society’ to create a vast range of products that include propaganda, policy formation and entertainment as well as actual histories.81 In Presenting History, Peter J. Beck claimed that while public history in the USA is defined by ‘“the core concept of public engagement by historians” in making the past accessible and useful to the public’, the situation in Britain was somewhat different, arguing that Ludmilla Jordanova’s definition of public history, which included ‘all the means, deliberate or otherwise, through which those who are not professional historians acquire their sense of the past’ was a more accurate depiction of history in the public arena.82 Yet as Ann Curthoys and Paula Hamilton argued in ‘What Makes History Public’, in the first edition of Public History Review, while it is possible to acknowledge these broader uses of history within the public domain, ‘the term “public history” has come to have a more specific meaning’.83 In 1978, G. Wesley Johnson wrote the Editor’s Preface to the very first issue of The Public Historian, claiming that ‘public history is a many faceted new field of history’, required because ‘historical skills and method are needed now outside of the academy, and that it is desirable for the historian to relate to the needs of the community, whether that is defined as governments, business or institutions’.84 Definitions of what constitutes a community have notably altered since this publication, but Johnson’s arguments that public history is and should be regarded as a separate field continue to garner support.85

81 Jeremy Black, Using History (London: Hodder Education, 2005), 1. 82 Peter J. Beck ‘Reaching out to a Public Audience’ in Peter J. Beck, Presenting History: Past and Present (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 31. See also Ludmilla Jordanova, ‘Public History’, History Today 50, no. 5 (2000): 20. 83 Ann Curthoys and Paula Hamilton, ‘What Makes History Public’, Public History Review 1 (1992): 9. 84 G. Wesley Johnson, ‘Editor’s Preface’, The Public Historian 1, no.1 (Fall 1978): 7, 4. 85 Katherine T. Corbett and Howard S. Dick Miller, ‘A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry’, The Public Historian: Public History as Reflective Practice 28, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 41. 25

There has also been some discomfort amongst practitioners with this definition, since as Noel J. Stowe writes, it follows that public history is defined in ‘terms of where it is practiced’ as opposed to ‘how’.86 For Curthoys and Hamilton, public history is defined ‘in the Australian context to mean those forms of historical representation which are produced outside of the academy, either directly addressing a large general audience, or for public, often governmental purposes’.87 Somewhat confusingly, the peak body for Australian public historians, however, uses the term ‘professional history’ to more clearly define work as both subject of paid employment and skilled expertise.88 Practitioners of public historians also sometimes use the term ‘community history’ to signal their commitment to the ideals of community engagement.89 Indeed, Stowe has argued that as public history proliferated, it ‘increasingly became linked to revealing the public’s history or people’s history, about giving agency to public- or community-based groups, about sharing authority…with individuals and groups’.90 It is perhaps for this reason that Holger Hook has noted ‘definitions of public history as a set of practise and as a discipline remain a matter of debate’.91 Within this thesis, public history is a term used to define histories created for or in conjunction with communities or individuals outside of academia, with broader uses of historical material falling under the rubric of ‘public usage of history’, a term for which I am indebted to Black, though the distinction between public history and the public use of history is my own.92 The use of

86 Noel J. Stowe, ‘Public History Curriculum: Illustrating Reflective Practice’, The Public Historian: Public History as Reflective Practice 28, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 42. 87 Ibid. 88 The desire to ‘create, legitimise, colonise, credentialise, and protect new professional public and private sector jobs for historians,’ was noted by Michael Frisch as early as 1990. Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1990), xxi. 89 Community engagement is a term used across numerous disciplines that emerged as a result of the social/anthropological turn of the 1970s. Its fullest espousal is enshrined in the field of Community Development. For a public history project that included community development as part of its purpose see Robin Trotter, ‘Rural Revitalisation and the Surat Cobb and Co Changing Station’ Public History Review: Going Public 8 (2000), 102–3. For more general writing in the field of community development see Jim Ife and Frank Tesoriero, Community Development: Community-Based Alternatives in an Age of Globalisation (Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education, 2008); Jim Ife, Community Development in an Uncertain World: Vision, Analysis and Practice (Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 90 Stowe, ‘Public History Curriculum: 44. 91 Holger Hook, ‘Introduction’, The Public Historian: Professional Practices of Public History in Britain 32, no. 3 (August 2010): 8. See also Hilda Keen, ‘People, Historians, and Public History: Demystifying the Process of History Making’, The Public Historian, Vol. 32, no. 3 (August 2010): 25. 92 While Black argues that there is a ‘danger’ in defining public history in too ‘rigid a fashion’, I feel that his phrase ‘public use of history’ offers clearer indication of the various uses to which history can be put in the public realm. Black, Using History, 8. 26 the terms communities and individuals, to use Stowe’s terminology, instead of Curthoys and Hamilton’s ‘general public’ here is a deliberate one, as it more clearly signals the breadth of public history work, which stretches from the creation of company histories, government programs, collaborations with indigenous peoples and other marginalised groups to the production of museum displays, heritage interpretation and even historical consultation on film sets. It also answers Nick Merriman’s argument that ‘the blanket term “the public’”, is always unsatisfactory to describe a hugely diverse range of people, with different age, sex, class, ethnicity and religious interests and affiliations, many of which are in conflict with each other that constitutes the “general public”’.93 The public in public history is thus a multi-vocal and heterogeneous body and as such, different sections of the public have different views on how history should be made, presented and received.94 It follows that one of the tasks that faces a public historian is defining just which parts of the general public they are working with or for, as was indeed the case with this project.

A Closer Look at Shared Authority and the Utility of Reflective Practice

In 2006, The Public Historian ran a special edition, Public History as Reflective Practice, in which guest editor Rebecca Conard argued that it is concept of the ‘practice’ that ‘sets [the field of] public history apart.95 Conard promoted the work of Donald A. Schön, whose theoretical framework of reflective practice has become a foundational concept in making good public history.96 In ‘Public History Curriculum: Illustrating Reflective Practice’ Stowe defined this process as one in which the practitioner frames the project, implements it, and then improvises or adjusts the project

93 Merriman argues that ‘Its only validity for our purposes comes if it is used as a shorthand term to describe the huge diversity of population, who do not earn a living as professional archaeologists.’ Nick Merriman, ‘Introduction: Diversity and Dissonance in Public Archaeology’ in Public Archaeology, ed. Nick Merriman (New York: Routledge, 2004), 2. 94 As Aaron L. Barth points out in his article about the different treatments of the history of Whitestone Hill over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the need to deal with different voices is not new. Aaron L. Barth, ‘Imagining a Battlefield at a Civil War Mistake: The Public History of Whitestone Hill, 1863 to 2013’, The Public Historian 35, no. 3 (August 2013): 91, 94–95. 95 Shelley Bookspan was Rebecca Conard’s co-editor for the special edition. Rebecca Conard, ‘Public History as Reflective Practice: An Introduction’, The Public Historian: Public History as Reflective Practice 28, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 11. 96 In particular Schön’s work, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Conard, ‘Public History as Reflective Practice’: 12. See also Stowe, ‘Public History Curriculum’: 39. 27 in response to changing conditions.97 He further argued that students of public history need to experience ‘reflection-in-action’ through practise, so that they could become familiar and knowledgeable about the practice of public history, develop an ability to hold ‘conversations-with-the-situation’, and learn from their own ‘reflection-on- actions’ at the end of each project.98 In ‘A shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry’ Katherine T. Corbett and Howard S. Dick Miller refined Schön’s theories about reflective practice and reflection-in-action, arguing that ‘Reflective practice was reflexive, self-critical, a recasting of the ancient admonition to know thyself. Reflection- in-action was responsive, a continual monitoring and adjusting of the practitioner’s behaviour in light of its effects.99 This project was completed using a reflective practice model as refined in Public History as Reflective Practice, and my supervisors encouraged me to write my thoughts about the project as it progressed: to reflect-in- action. As a result, I have been careful to keep all correspondence, drafts and notes created during the course of the Churchill Island Project, and these sources have been extremely useful in completing the following detailed analysis of my efforts to complete a good public history of Churchill Island. This experiential model was recently discussed by Katrine Barber, whose rigorous analysis (reflection-on-action) of her efforts to build capacity with indigenous groups through public history acknowledged that much of her learning was achieved through a ‘trial and error’ model of practice, and that she worked to provide students with a similar, if supervised practice model of learning, echoing Stowe’s ideas about how public history should be practised and taught.100

According to Corbett and Miller, reflective practice and reflection-in-action are fused in the process of shared inquiry, in which practitioners collaborated with others to set what would be the focus of their work and how this is to be achieved. Linked to the concept of shared inquiry was the idea of shared authority, where practitioners and those they worked with and for shared in decision-making and the direction of a project.101 At the time of the publication of Public History as Reflective Practice, many public historians were already familiar with the concept of shared authority courtesy of

97 Stowe, ‘Public History Curriculum’: 54 98 Ibid., 55. Italics in original. 99 Corbett and Miller, ‘A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry’: 18. Italics in original. 100 Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’: 32. 101 Corbett and Miller, ‘A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry’: 18. 28

Michael Frisch’s influential book, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History. For many public historians in the United States particularly, this book helped define public history as a field governed by its emergence from social history and its avowed progressive political aims.102 Drawing on Schön, Frisch argued that public (and oral) history had a ‘capacity to redefine and redistribute intellectual authority, so that this might be shared more broadly in historical research and communication rather than continuing to serve as an instrument of power and hierarchy.’103 According to Frisch, sharing authority not only enhanced public historians’ capacity for understanding those they professed to serve, but provided the space necessary for non-historians to take control of the way their pasts were being represented: the method mirrored the political aims of the project. As Corbett and Miller note, however, the process of sharing inquiry (designing or implementing a research process) and perhaps more particularly sharing authority (making meaning) is not a straightforward procedure.

While the discipline of history encourages good scholars to engage in critical self-reflection and to some extent in shared inquiry, through processes like peer review and teaching, sharing authority has proved more difficult as it requires practitioners to not only give up traditional ideas about the role of the expert and their privileged position as meaning makers, it also requires a set of practical skills, such as mediation, generally not required within the academy.104 While many public historians might desire to cede authority when working with groups or minorities that have traditionally been disadvantaged and might be empowered through such collaborations, most public historians (and many academics) are far less sanguine about ceding authority to groups

102 Frisch, A Shared Authority, xviii; Corbett and Miller, ‘A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry’: 20; Katrine Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’: 23; Michael Frisch, ‘Commentary: Sharing Authority: Oral History and the Collaborative Process’, The Oral History Review 30, no. 1 (Winter–Spring 2003): 113. In Britain, similar desires manifested in the History Workshop, founded in 1976 with the purpose of narrowing the gap between academics and the general public. Most of its articles, despite the desires of its editors, continued to be submitted by academics, rather than the general public. Georg G. Iggers and Q. Edward Wang, assisted by Supriya Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography (Harlow; New York: Pearson Longman, 2008), 278–9. 103 Frisch, A Shared Authority, xx. The Smithsonian secretary S. Dillon Ripley had in fact argued that museums needed to respond to the needs and desires of marginalised groups in 1969, but had not gone as far as suggesting that institutions like the Smithsonian should actively take on political or developmental roles. Lewis, The Changing Face of Public History, 5. 104 Ibid., 108–111. 29 who have traditionally enjoyed privilege or wide-spread acceptance.105 In this context Corbett and Miller’s comment in ‘A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry’, regarding the issue of ‘how much authority they [public historians] are willing to share in the public use of materials created with and for the public’ is one worth considering.106 Indeed, as Catherine M. Lewis argued, public historians and museums’ efforts to ‘transform visitors and nonvisitors into stakeholders’, not only opened the doors to the recent immigrants and the poor to re-imagine or reposition their past, but to a wide ranging ‘constituency’ that included politicians and commentators, all of whom ‘claimed they should have the right to comment on how museums interpret the past’.107 Moreover, in the wake of the culture wars, public historians like Robert Weible have advocated a more history based disciplinary approach, perhaps at the expense of sharing authority with stakeholders. When Weible charged public historians with the task of ‘making history matter, by making history dangerous to simple and self-serving renditions of the past, and by help[ing] people understand what’s real about history so that we can all do a better job of making it’,108 he expected public historians to include others in the history making process, but not, I would argue, to the point of ceding their authority as meaning makers or experts. As Lewis has argued, the ideals of sharing authority and social justice may still function as an ideal to which public historians aspire, but they are a standard which has proved difficult to meet.109 My own experience in doing public history confirms Lewis’s argument that sharing authority is difficult, but I would stress here that difficult is not the same as impossible. Recent writings by Katrine Barber in the field of public history, and Sonya Atalay in the related field of community

105 Martin Harwit’s testimony about his failed effort to exhibit the Enola Gay in 1995 at the National Air and Space Museum in a critical and dispassionate fashion, for example, clearly catalogues his concerns about offending the Japanese, teaching about the horror of war—specifically the purpose and effects of strategic bombing—but glosses over the desires of the veterans until they challenge his exhibition, at which point the engagement with stakeholders transforms into a battle for curatorial control. Harwit, Lobbying the Enola Gay, viii, 361–6; Wallace, ‘The Battle of the Enola Gay’, 281. For further reading on the culture wars of the 1990s and 2000s see Lewis, The Changing Face of Public History, 3–5; Atwood, ‘Difficult Histories’: 54–55. 106 Corbett and Miller, ‘A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry’: 20. 107 Lewis, The Changing Face of Public History, 6–7. 108 Paraphrased in Randolph Bergstrom, ‘In Dogged Pursuit of Public History’, The Public Historian 28, no. 4 (Fall 2006): 5. 109 ‘[T]he most important lesson to come out of the Neighbourhoods projects has been an awareness that the complete sharing of authority is an unrealistic goal’ for museums ‘because they were not established for this purpose’. Museums, according to Lewis, are viewed as ‘places of authority’ and the interpretation of their collections is, Lewis argues, a ‘form of power’. Lewis, ‘The Neighbourhoods Project’ in The Changing Face of Public History, 7, 9, 120. 30 archaeology, suggest that as our knowledge of the ways in which sharing authority and its equivalents improves, so too will our capacity to successfully share authority and still achieve rigorous histories.

In her recent article, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’, Barber argued that public and oral historians have used the term shared authority ‘in sometimes fluid and imprecise ways that nonetheless have opened an important conversation about what it means to collaborate with noncredentialed experts’.110 As Barber notes in her article, however, in the related field of public archaeology, significant advances have been made in the way researchers work with their publics in recent years. These advances are based on the incorporation of collaborative practice frameworks similar to those utilised in community (led) development and advocated by the field of participatory research to offer a more equal relationships and better social justice outcomes for indigenous, disadvantaged, descendant or local communities.111 Atalay’s 2012 book, Community-Based Archaeology: Research with, by and for Indigenous and Local Communities, for example, offers public archaeologists a comprehensive guide to doing Community Based Participatory Research (hereafter CBPR), the values of which are similar to the ideas of ‘shared inquiry’ and ‘shared authority’, that public historians looking to more effectively share authority would do well to investigate.112 According to Atalay, CBPR in the field of archaeology share five commonalities. ‘(1) They use a community-based, partnership process; (2) they aspire to be participatory in all aspects; (3) they build community capacity; (4) they engage a spirit of reciprocity; and (5) they recognise the contributions of multiple knowledge systems’.113 Although the project to complete a PhD of Churchill Island’s history has not been completed using a CBPR model, but rather using the action-reflection model as interpreted in Public History as Reflective Practice, Atalay’s work is useful because it identifies and analyses many of the aspects that make up the collaborative practises with which this project was heavily engaged.

110 Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’: 23–24. 111 Inspiring Communities, Learning by Doing: Community-led Change in Aotearoa NZ (New Zealand: Inspiring Communities Trust, 2013), 8, 9, 11, 14. 112 Sonya Atalay, Community-Based Archaeology: Research with, by and for Indigenous and Local Communities (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012. It also utilises a reflexive model similar to Schön’s ideas of reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, drawing not only on her experiences, but those of other collaborative researchers also. 113 Atalay, Community-Based Archaeology, 63. 31

Reflective Practice: Framing the Churchill Island Project

This project was completed using a reflective practice model as refined in Public History as Reflective Practice, and my supervisors encouraged me to write my thoughts about the project as it progressed: to reflect-in-action.114 This reflective practice framework enabled me to analyse how my relationships with the Churchill Island Project’s public (and later with academics also) impacted on the management of the project and construction of this thesis over time. To assist the conduct such an analysis, it is useful to divide the project into four separate, but overlapping phases. These phases reflect and build upon Stowe’s ideas regarding reflective practitioners’ ability to frame, implement and improvise; the public history field’s interest in shared inquiry and authority; and Atalay’s arguments regarding the importance of relationships in collaborative work, particularly her championing of a community-based, partnership process, building community capacity, and a spirit of reciprocity.115 These ideas were reinterpreted in the Churchill Island Project to ensure that the project engaged in a meaningful way with Churchill Island’s public, whom I identify as stakeholders; produced a useful product, and (eventually) recognised the usefulness of a reciprocal approach in achieving these ends because of its capacity to build strong partnerships through increased trust. The data set is the correspondence, meeting minutes, paperwork and official documents, field work notes and prior drafts I kept in response to supervisors’ suggestions that I reflect in writing during the project.116 Phase One of the Churchill Island Project covers my introduction to the project, some early attempts to define its purpose, and the identification of its public as the project’s stakeholders and their influence regarding its direction. Phase Two served as a response to my

114 Unfortunately it did not occur to me or my supervisors that this reflection would be anything other than private and little thought was therefore expended upon how such reflections ought to be written up or managed. This created problems later in the project when I wished to include a selection of these reflections, journal entries and field notes as an appendix. 115 Stowe, ‘Public History Curriculum: Illustrating Reflective Practice’:54; Atalay, Community-Based Archaeology, 63. 116 It was not until the very end of the project that I realised that this meant I had essentially created an archive. Perhaps because of this I did not fully grasp the significance of this act—specifically that such an archive would require careful management and ethical consideration. While I was careful to consult relevant stakeholders referenced or quoted in the body of the thesis, my attention did need to be directed to the fact that the publication of materials in an archive like this in an appendix, without permissions being acquired first, or the opportunity for those mentioned within it to edit those parts that concerned them was unethical, and a poor match for the collaborative practice I had used throughout the project. 32 experiences and findings during the first phase and my subsequent search for a more effective way of doing public history, and could be described as experimental. Phase Three in turn was a response to my experiments in better ways of doing public history, not all of which were successful or successfully executed, and which led me to question how useful my public history approach had been. It was a phase that can be described as one of reassessment. Phase Four led not so much out of Phase Three, but rather out of both Phase Two and Three, and in response to the first introductory phase: Phase One providing motive, Phase Two method and phase three the capacity for critical analysis with which I could refine my approach during Phase Four. While it would be possible to describe Phase Four as one of renewal, particularly during its initial period, in the longer term it would be more accurate to describe it as one of confirmation. These phases occurred in roughly chronological order, though with significant periods of overlap. It is important to note that the effects and actions of each phase required significant amounts of time to mature, and that this ensured that they remained co- dependent, as indeed my description of Phase Four indicates.

To follow my four-phase analysis of the Churchill Island Project it is useful to obtain an introduction to its numerous stakeholders. The Churchill Island Project was commissioned by PINP, who co-sponsored the research for the thesis, together with the Department of History, later SHAPS, and together these two entities form the project’s research partners.117 As I have suggested above, the project’s research partners are not the only people with whom I have worked with over the course of the PhD, and they do not constitute the whole of this project’s audience. From the start, PINP included FOCIS in many of our discussions and meetings, and this group has become a very important non-financial stakeholder within a group I have identified as the Churchill Island Community.118 Other non-financial stakeholders in the Churchill Island Community include PIDHS,119 and those people whose relationship with Churchill Island is primarily a personal one—who had lived, worked or visited the island

117 The University of Melbourne, Student Research Project Agreement, 3 May 2007. 118 FOCIS was inaugurated in 1985 as a successor to the Churchill Island Restoration Group. A fully incorporated organisation, its mission is ‘to preserve that which is precious’. 119 PIDHS is a fully incorporated organisation, which in addition to providing a network for those interested in the district’s history, presenting talks and supporting local history publications and other initiatives, also runs the local museum. As part of the project I made sure I visited the PIDHS and their museum, and presented a paper on my research during an early stage in the project. 33 throughout their lifetimes, or whose ancestors did.120 There were also other stakeholders who had less interest in Churchill Island, but who did have an interest in my PhD in an academic sense, including my supervisors and potential examiners, as well as the troubling idea of a more general public. In addition there was also the matter of my own wishes, which I quickly concluded were also exhibiting an influence on my conduct of the project. To better manage their at times competing input and desires, I divided this diverse array of stakeholders into two categories, public and academic, about a year and half into the project. Public stakeholders is a term used throughout this thesis to describe any stakeholders in the project who a have a vested interest in this thesis’s findings, in contrast to academics, who may be interested in the detail, or methodology for research purposes, but whose personal lives and views are not likely to alter as a result of my presentation of Churchill Island’s history. Public stakeholders include research partner PINP, Churchill Island Community stakeholders, and a broader public, whom I identify more distinctly in Chapter Three as the site’s past and present managements, visitors and those who have evinced an interest in Churchill Island’s history. Academic stakeholders include the University of Melbourne, and research partner SHAPS, my supervisors, other academics that came into contact with my work, my peers in postgraduate research and in a more abstract sense, my examiners and potential academic users. The exception to this rule is me, as I was the only stakeholder who did not fit neatly into either category. Although unlikely to be directly affected by the presentation of Churchill Island’s past, I could and have been indirectly affected by it, largely because I cared about how my public stakeholders would react to my presentation of Churchill Island’s past. I also desired (and needed) to produce something that critically analysed Churchill Island’s past and this resulted in my positioning somewhere between public and academic stakeholders.

A Four-Phase Project

While I was committed to utilising a public history approach from the beginning of the project, and my supervisors were helpful in suggesting a reflective approach in my writing, I wasn’t familiar with Schön’s theories about reflective practice, and how these

120 Several of these people belong, or have belonged, to one of the above mentioned organisations, but my contact with them has largely been on an individual level, and it is this aspect that has defined our relationships. 34 worked to generate shared inquiry and shared authority. As so many public history practitioners before me, however, I quickly found myself dealing with these concepts through the experience of my project, beginning with issues arising from shared inquiry, and as the project progressed, with shared authority.121 By the time I had been introduced to the Churchill Island Project, much of the initial framing had already been completed. PINP had approached the University with the intent of obtaining a history PhD on Churchill Island, thus defining the project’s primary outcome.122 The contract that followed soon after both SHAPS and PINP’s acceptance of my candidacy obliged the University to provide the ‘Research Partner’, PINP, with a draft copy prior to submission of the thesis, allowing them to ‘make suggestions about the content’, but not editorial rights.123 As the ‘Student’ I was bound to abide by the agreement brokered on my behalf.124 Unfortunately it was some time before I had access to a copy of the contract myself, which meant I was unsure as to what my legal obligations were.125 What I did have was a commitment to using a public history approach, a strong desire to produce a product that would be used rather than shelved, and a series of meetings between PINP, FOCIS that defined the subject matter the thesis was to cover and the other outcomes PINP and FOCIS desired.126 Reflection-during-action resulted in a commitment to the ideal of shared inquiry, which worked well in defining the broad outcomes the Churchill Island Project was to achieve, including the selection of the thesis’s subject matter.

Meetings with both FOCIS and PINP revealed that what they desired was a history of Churchill Island based on solid research that could help them demarcate between fact and fiction, and which was strong on detail which could then be used to improve or

121 Corbett and Miller, ‘A Shared Inquiry into Shared Inquiry’: 18. 122 It is from conversations with my supervisors and PINP that I know that it was PINP who approached the University, rather than the other way around, and that it was PINP who stipulated that the outcome be a PhD thesis, rather than some other format (e.g. an honours level project). Keir Reeves, supervision meeting supervision meeting 18 July 2007, meeting with Graeme Burgen, Wednesday 25 July, 2007. Journal for Churchill Island, entry for Wednesday 25 July, 2007. 123 The University of Melbourne, Student Research Project Agreement, 3 May 2007, 8.1a; 8.2a ii. The contract records a number of items of interest, including conduct of research, intellectual property, confidentiality, publication, funding, dispute resolution and termination. 124 Email from Andrew May to Eileen Rebecca Sanders, Sean Scalmer, Penny Edmonds, Sanders Contract, 23 May 2010. 125 Ibid. 126 Minutes 7 May, 16 May, 2007. 35 update the site’s heritage interpretation.127 At a joint meeting near the beginning of Phase One of the project, PINP,128 FOCIS,129 SHAPS,130 and I generated a list of topics we believed the thesis should cover.131

These were:

 Indigenous history  Early exploration and settlement  European history: (e.g. owners, squatters, and including up to the present, when the island became Government land, as well as the significant changes since 1996)  Land Use: including agronomy/botany/agriculture (including the possibility of discussion of the landscape and palaeobotany). Of some interest was the determining of the site where the first crops were planted  Artefacts/Material Culture (e.g. farm machinery; objects that have been found on the island such as buttons and bones etc.)  Outside events  Social and cultural aspects (including folklore)  Heritage tourism  Women/Gender132

127 PINP CEO Mark Manteit was particularly interested in detail that would assist in creating a new attraction using ‘pepper’s ghosts’, holographic displays of historical characters that would speak to visitors, in the new museum PINP was then conceptualising. Minutes 2 May 2007. 128 Represented by CEO Mark Manteit and Churchill Island Gardener Megan McCarthy. Minutes, Churchill Island PhD Meeting, Churchill Island, 7 May 2007. 129 Represented by then President Fred Allen, Secretary Jill Allen and Treasurer Peter Hollingworth. Ibid. 130 Represented by my supervisors, then Dr Andrew May and Dr Keir Reeves. Ibid. 131 Only one week into my candidature, and with only a minimal familiarity with Churchill Island’s history, or with any real understanding of how to construct a PhD thesis, my contributions to the discussions were limited. What I did ask for was the opportunity to discuss Churchill Island’s history within the context of ‘outside events’, since a broader context, rather than exhaustive research was what seemed to be missing in previous histories of the site. Minutes, Churchill Island PhD Meeting, Churchill Island, 7 May 2007. Exhaustive research is often well within the grasp of members of friends groups or local historical societies, who may be willing to invest years of time into the research of a single topic. This is superbly illustrated in local history works like Valda Cole’s Western Port Chronology and Catherine Coulson’s Story of the Dandenongs. Cole, Western Port Chronology; Helen Carlyle (Duncan) Coulson, Story of the Dandenongs, 1838–1958 (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1959). 132 Minutes, Churchill Island PhD Meeting, Churchill Island, 7 May 2007. 36

Discussions were chaired by then PINP CEO, Mark Manteit, who actively encouraged FOCIS to drive the selection of suitable topics.133 My supervisors as representatives of SHAPS collated of PINP’s and FOCIS’s desires into the recognisable list above, illustrating the useful role public historians play in helping stakeholders define and frame their research agendas. My own contributions were limited since I was only one week into the project, and had only the vaguest idea of how a thesis ought to look. Nonetheless, I asked for the project to address outside events, since it seemed to me that it was broader contextualisation, rather than exhaustive research that was missing in previous versions of the island’s history.134 Further meetings with PINP and FOCIS, and oral interviews with those who had personal connections with the island’s past, emphasised the interest public stakeholders had in finding the location of the 1801 garden.135 The provenance of the nineteenth-century cannon was also a popular topic with these public stakeholders.136 In addition, Manteit further explained that he hoped my thesis would contain strong stories and characters that could be used for future heritage interpretations.137 The validity of addressing these topics in the thesis was strengthened by my research in the Churchill Island Archives, where I uncovered evidence that such interests in the island’s history were of long standing.138 Experiences

133 The influence of Patricia Baird’s History and Her Story is palpable with regards to FOCIS and even PINP, and illustrates one of the myriad ways in which local historical societies and friends groups have moved to include topics formerly only discussed within academic texts. The author was a long time member of FOCIS. This discussion indicated new historical interests and concerns had been added to the more traditionally masculine arenas of exploration and land ownership. Wheeler has argued that official histories often promulgate a ‘projection of a particular Australian identity—British, white masculine and fixed—that is, in the early twenty-first century, outdated.’ Wheeler, Who Owns Linton’s Past, 4. 134 Baird for example attempted to inject contextualisation through the device of a timeline comparing events on Churchill Island to world events, but lack of familiarity with critical discourse meant that her efforts were hampered by her unconscious viewing of these events through prism of a Judeo/Christian narrative of progress. Minutes, Churchill Island PhD Meeting, Churchill Island, 7 May 2007. 135 Almost everyone had a theory, and just as clearly enjoyed having the opportunity to put forward their views as to its possible location. The two locations usually presented were near the present monument erected to celebrate the first planting of wheat in Victoria, or at the top of the hill, where a good view of the surrounding bay could be obtained and make the site useful for defensive purposes. Discussions with Graeme Burgan, PINP; Megan McCarthy, PINP; Pamela Jeffrey, PINP and personal connection; Laurie Thompson, personal connection and FOCIS; Fred and Jill Allen, FOCIS; Gail Cleeland, FOCIS, PIDHS, and personal connection; Pat Baird, author History and Her Story and FOCIS. 136 David Maunders, FOCIS website and newsletter contribution, discussion at FOCIS meetings. 137 Minutes, Churchill Island PhD Meeting, Churchill Island, 7 May 2007; Email Correspondence with Mark Manteit, CEO PINP, 7 October 2009. Early drafts were composed in a narrative style in an attempt to include more ‘character’ details, however, this approach proved unsuitable for an academic thesis. I have attempted to retain details, if only in footnotes. 138 Photographs in the collection show trips to the Wimmera District and wheat planting experiments— there and at Churchill Island dating back to the 1980s, and the cannon was used as the island’s logo 37 with public stakeholders and increasing familiarity with the site, PINP’s management of it, and field trips to the surrounding landscapes on Phillip and French Islands, as well as south-western Gippsland, suggested the thesis should also address the site’s history of farming.139 In addition to this there was a clause in the minutes of the joint meeting between SHAPS, PINP and FOCIS that suggested the thesis should ‘not only develop historical content…but it should also critically review best practice in heritage tourism’.140 This, together with input from members during FOCIS meetings suggested that the thesis should also examine Churchill Island’s role as a heritage site.

Having jointly defined the project’s major outcomes, discussion fell to method of implementation. PINP and FOCIS both wanted research to begin with the collection of oral interviews, since many potential interviewees were aging and some had recently passed away.141 My supervisors and I wanted to begin with the more usual literature surveys before getting quickly into the archives, particularly since we had been informed that no diaries, letters or other such useful primary sources material were known to exist, other than records of the site once it had become government property. This was important, because SHAPS (which included my supervisors) needed to know if a PhD of the site’s history would be viable in an academic, discipline-based sense.142 PINP’s solution was to request a database that be completed while we were awaiting ethics approval for interviews to proceed— a survey of sources that would direct the research agenda for the PhD, which they expected would satisfy SHAPS and also provide PINP and FOCIS with a path to follow should the project fail.143 My PhD, however, was in history, and what SHAPS really wanted was writing, and a strong theoretical or methodological framing for my research.144 Since SHAPS needed to know if I had a viable PhD within six months to a year, and PINP and FOCIS were both

during the 1980s and 90s, and also had a report commissioned about its provenance. Photograph Albums, National Parks Service Victoria and Department of Natural Resources and the Environment Files, CIA. 139 Ibid., Field Notes, 4 June 2007, 20 June 2007. 140 Minutes, Churchill Island PhD Meeting, Churchill Island, 7 May 2007. 141 Meeting with PINP and FOCIS, Field Notes, 20 March 2007. 142 PINP and FOCIS assumed that the information must be there, somewhere, and it was my job to find it. This turned out to be true, on both accounts. PINP was also anxious for me to utilise the Churchill Island archives, which I did, but these pertain almost entirely to the site’s history since 1976, with the exception of a small number of unprovenanced photographs and some newspaper cuttings. 143 Presumably because this is the mode of operation in the sciences, with which PINP had experience . 144 With good cause: I was consistently behind in producing the expected chapters for milestone events, and I found myself earnestly telling my peers the advice I felt I should have followed—write early, write often, write with a firm purpose. 38 anxious to get oral interviews started lest anyone pass away, I found my model of shared inquiry resulted in two competing research agendas. The outcome was a series of lacklustre interviews due to my lack of familiarity with the site’s history or any theoretical knowledge that might have assisted in better framing them,145 and a department (and supervisors) concerned with my lack of progress with regard to actually writing the thesis. Simply throwing away the shared inquiry model because it had failed to yield a straightforward research path, however, was not an option, because of the nature of my relationships with the project’s public stakeholders.

In Community-Based Archaeology, Atalay argues that ‘Critically important in any early exchange [between stakeholders or partners] is the sense of trust that is established and an understanding of [any] partners’ commitment to the project’.146 This was a major problem. From the beginning of the project, meetings with PINP CEO, Mark Manteit, had been uncomfortable affairs: his admission that he had been unhappy with the performance of a previous university research partner signalled that Manteit was a nervous client, and his questions about the project were direct and often challenging.147 Reflecting on the frequency of my meetings and other communications with Manteit, who was my main point of contact with PINP for the first four years of the project, made it easy to identify winning Manteit’s trust as an important task.148 Defining just how important this task was, and how much time I should correspondingly spend on it was more difficult. Were Manteit’s threats to cut my funding when he felt

145 This was helpfully pointed out to me by one of the interviewee’s relatives. She was of course correct, but it wasn’t a problem I felt able to solve. 146 Atalay, Community-Based Archaeology, 142. 147 For example during our first meeting Manteit asked me what my first steps would be in bringing my project to a successful completion. My answer was to draw on comments Manteit and the Allens had made about time running out for people that should be interviewed for the project, and promise that organising oral interviews would be one of the early steps in the research process. The inference of the interview, and a number of subsequent meetings was that there was a certain standard that PINP were expecting me to meet, and indeed, as my supervisor later described his understanding of it, an opportunity to either fail or impress my client. Meeting with PINP and FOCIS, Field Notes, 20 March 2007; Email from Eileen Rebecca Sanders to Andrew May, Had meeting on Tuesday at Churchill, 22 March 2007; Wednesday 2 May notes for self; Minutes CI History Meeting 07 May; Supervisory meeting with Andrew May, 16 May 2012. 148 Manteit’s desire to promote, protect and strengthen the PINP brand was frequently communicated in a defensive way during our conversations, with Manteit often pointing out innovations or improvements in EH&S or his plans to increase visitor numbers in a way that implied (and occasionally made very clear) that I was not to comment or detract from such initiatives in my writing, or otherwise damage the PINP brand. A former employee on Churchill Island once noted that I was unwilling to discuss the running PINP’s running of the site in any way, which was a direct result of my fears regarding Manteit’s’ surveillance of the project. 39 progress on the oral history interviews were being unnecessarily delayed by the University’s bureaucratic ethics process, for example, merely a response to frustrations with bureaucracy, or were they symptomatic of a larger problem?149 How, for example, did this event tally with Manteit’s preference that I spend larger amounts of time in situ on Churchill or Phillip Island at PINP’s expense, or his efforts to provide professional development in the form of mentoring that simultaneously ensured I did not damage the PINP brand through lack of experience in public relations?150 Reflecting on the experience of public historians during the culture or history wars alerted me to the possibility that missteps could also result in the cancellation of my project,151 but my lack of experience, what Stowe refers to as knowledge and skills,152 meant that I lacked the tools necessary to delineate what would constitute such missteps, and this made my relationship with Manteit very stressful.

In addition to the issue of trust in my dealings with Manteit, and through him PINP, was the issue of my becoming an embedded part of FOCIS. Manteit’s inclusion of FOCIS in many of our meetings and strong encouragement of my spending time on Churchill and Phillip Islands, together with my frequent attendance at FOCIS meetings, resulted in me being viewed as part of their community.153 While very different in tone from my interactions with PINP, I noticed that my frequent contact FOCIS made it difficult to write about Churchill Island in a critical fashion.154 While success stories

149 Meeting with Mark Manteit, Penguin Parade, Phillip Island 25 May 2007; Correspondence with Mark Manteit, 7 September 2007. 150 Other examples include Manteit’s promises that any information I required from PINP would be supplied and the unusual nature of his personal involvement in the project as the CEO of an organisation of about 400 paid staff. Rebecca Sanders, Wednesday 2 May 2007 notes for self, p. 3; Minutes Churchill Island History Meeting at Churchill Island, Wednesday 2 May, p. 3. 151 Macintyre Clark, The History Wars, 128, 137, 161–8; Harwit, Lobbying the Enola Gay, ii–viii; Wallace, ‘The Battle of the Enola Gay’, 278–86. 152 Stowe, ‘Public History Curriculum’: 39, 46–7, 50–58. 153 FOCIS members were not only friendly to me at meetings, but extended their hospitality to lunch and boarding at their private homes, encouraged me in my research and extended a number of privileges to me usually only available to paying members, including free copies of the newsletters and access to their membership data. While FOCIS encouragement of my work was always apparent, I do not think I really understood my position with regard to FOCIS from the point of view of members until a meeting in 2010, when then President Stella Axarlis (who is also a member of the PINP Board of Management) stated as a matter of course that I would assist FOCIS with their museum submission. 154 As I noted in ‘Mapping the Future of a European Western Port Bay’,‘The thirst to know what it was like, to come as close as possible to experiencing history, [was] conveyed to me through oral interviews and interaction with the Friends of Churchill Island Society [which] proved infectious.’ As a result, early drafts were overwhelmingly celebratory of the island’s history and preserved the idea that Churchill Island was of some special significance, since this was the opinion of FOCIS members. ‘Oral Portraits of 40 like Mary Mecham Freedom Crossing Project provided a strong motivation for maintaining good relations with FOCIS,155 as they demonstrated a clear link between successful community engagement and community acceptance of challenging histories,156 author Andrew Hurley also argued that the project demonstrated that ‘grassroots initiatives are no less likely than elite-driven ones to perpetrate myths rather than examine them critically’.157 From my interactions with FOCIS members it was clear that some of their interpretations of Churchill Island’s past were much loved and of long standing, and I was concerned that a more critical analysis of Churchill Island’s past might alienate them, particularly as I had found Miles Lewis’s heritage assessment in their volunteer hut that also served as the storehouse for Churchill Island’s Archives. Both PINP and FOCIS appeared to be in ignorance of some of Lewis’s findings,158 and reflection-during-action suggested that Lewis’s report had been shelved, either deliberately, or because it had failed to engage stakeholders.159 This was troubling, indicating a possible future for my own work.160 I had similar reservations about my

a Cultural Landscape’ for example argued that ‘This picturesque island is a complex and valuable cultural landscape, well suited to the staging of a history of land use and attitudes toward the environment.’ Rebecca Sanders, ‘Mapping the Future of a European Western Port Bay’, unpublished paper, 2008 Australian Historical Association Conference, University of Melbourne, 10 July 2008; Rebecca Sanders, ‘Oral Portraits of a Cultural Landscape’, unpublished paper presented at History Postgraduate Monday Night Seminar Series, University of Melbourne, 1 September 2008. 155 Andrew Hurley, ‘Narrating the Urban Waterfront: The Role of Public History in Community Revitalisation’, The Public Historian 28, no.4 (Fall 2006): 41–2. 156 Challenging defined here as histories that in some way revise previous understandings, as opposed to ‘difficult’ histories or heritages, which deal with subjects of pain and shame, and where differing views may simultaneously co-exist resulting in difficulties in management. See William Logan and Keir Reeves, Places of Pain and Shame, Dealing with Difficult Heritage (Milton Park; New York: Routledge, 2009), 1–3, 10–13. 157 Hurley, ‘Narrating the Urban Waterfront’: 40. 158 This includes Lewis’s opinion that John Rogers had been the island’s first settler, and the nature of his leasing of Churchill Island as a part of the Sandstone Island pastoral run prior to its purchase. Miles Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft unpublished report commissioned by Ray Leivers, PINP 1999, stamped by Heritage Victoria as an endorsed document, Permit 500, File 602898), 4–8, 18 Files, PINP, CIA. Hand written notes on the draft copy state that the final version was the same as the draft. 159 I later found out that some FOCIS members and people with personal connections were in fact aware of the report, but did not appear to hold it in high regard. Email Correspondence with Laurie Thompson. 160 This was a major topic of a paper for the departmental Work In Progress Day, Theory and Method Beyond the Ivory Tower: Churchill Island and Public History in Practice, where I presented some central questions, including: ‘Why is it important to create history for the public at all and what should such a history achieve?’. 41 dealings with those public stakeholders whose relationship with Churchill Island was more personal.161

While I found reflection-in-action to be useful in helping determine the utility of a shared inquiry model, particularly with regard to the broader aims of the project, its limitations once I began applying it to the project’s research phase had proved more problematic. Not only did I lack the knowledge and skills required to successfully reflect-during-action as Stowe argues, I was not reporting to my supervisors about issues regarding my use of shared inquiry as transparently as I needed to as a result of my fears of failure: failure to produce a critical analysis of Churchill Island’s past; failure to create a product that would be utilised by my public stakeholders; or, most spectacularly, to be responsible for the project’s cessation. This lack of knowledge, and the possibility of further conflict and failure also led me to avoid seeking out interviews with Churchill Island’s traditional owners: former Project Manager Sally O’Neil had suggested there was some unresolved tensions within this group, and my reading of the University’s ethics process, already a cause of tension within the project, suggested to me that this would require yet another round of ethics approval.162 Stowe’s arguments regarding the importance of reflective practice, however, did assist me in identifying trust as a major issue in the project, since its lack meant that it was difficult for me to resolve the project’s competing research agendas. It was only with time, which provided me with the opportunities to acquire the necessary skills and experience, that I could utilise the reflection-in-action model to define not only whose trust was required, but its importance with regard to successfully completing the project. (Fig. 1). Doing so allowed me to move onto the second, experimental phase of the Churchill Island Project.

161 I became aware very early on that the oral interviews I was conducting were not yielding the kind of information that would enable me to use them as important primary sources in my thesis, and I was concerned that these stakeholders might feel mislead in placing their trust in me if I failed to make much use of their testimony. 162 A later reading of the ethics approval process suggested that my original application would have sufficed, but by this stage I had realised that I was unlikely to pursue an oral history methodology for the thesis, and was already so far behind schedule that I did not pursue interviews, a decision I now regret. 42

Fig. 1 Diagram illustrating how I defined my relationships with project stakeholders in 2008.Theory and Method Beyond the Ivory Tower: Churchill Island and Public History in Practice, Work In Progress Paper, University of Melbourne, 6 November 2008. 43

Having defined whose trust I required, to what extent and why, in Phase Two I concentrated on a series of experiments in shared inquiry that attempted to obtain the trust I had decided the project required.163 Table 1 records my experimentation with regard to the project’s management and the composition of the thesis during the second phase of the project.164 Many of these experiments were instigated by my public stakeholders. Items with a single star denote requests from PINP that were considered non-negotiable and grounds for breach of promise,165 two stars indicate where I felt pressure to comply with stakeholder desires that would not affect my contract with PINP. As the number of starred items attests, the pressure exerted by my public stakeholders, deliberately or unconsciously, was considerable. This table also illustrates how haphazard my experimentation was: for the most part I responded to stakeholder desires issue by issue, rather than having a clear idea of how individual attempts to share inquiry might progress the project and increase trust between stakeholders in more cohesive fashion, partly due to a dearth of practical, project-management based writing in the field detailing the logistics of shared inquiry and my own lack of experience.166

163 Although this process had begun prior to this definition, the process of experimentation was greatly assisted by it, as I could form decisions consciously and with a purpose, rather than subconsciously and on the basis of intuition. Due to the still emerging nature of the Public History field at the time I began the Churchill Island Project, there was little writing that offered techniques or solutions to dealing with stakeholder input, other than the idea of reflective practice, although many authors discussed the problems they encountered in trying to share authority. While this was comforting, it did not assist with the progression of the project as much as I would have liked. Corbett and Miller, ‘A Shared inquiry into Shared Inquiry’: 19–22, 25–38.The principal of shared inquiry is similar to Atalay’s that the project’s public stakeholders have the right to be participants in the research process. Atalay, Community-Based Archaeology, 129. 164 Which also reflects the porous nature of the project’s various phases, with some initiatives beginning prior to the end of the first phase, and others continuing into subsequent parts of the project. 165 One of my most memorable meetings with Manteit was when he threatened to cut PINP’s funding if my ethics application was not successful on its first attempt. The need for consistent communication had been highlighted several times during our second meeting, although I had not envisaged that that would involve fortnightly communication. 166 In the case of the Mary Meecham Freedom Crossing project in St Louis, this was because the community engagement, where a series of ‘community workshops’ developed site design, attended by ‘over a hundred residents’, were organised and run by ‘local service agency’ Grace Hill Settlement House, rather than by a public historian. Hurley, ‘Narrating the Urban Waterfront’: 35, 37–8. 44

Table 1

Project Management Composition of Thesis Sent Manteit fortnightly reports of Used the ‘agreed subjects’ list as the basis progress for first nine months and monthly for the thesis’ structure and purpose* reports for PINP Board in following two years* Attended joint meetings with Manteit and Experimented with a narrative style that I FOCIS representatives Fred and Jill hoped would make thesis more accessible Allen* to public stakeholders Attended FOCIS meetings regularly Incorporated Manteit’s request for throughout PhD** ‘interesting characters’ into my writing by including personal background and motives about the island’s various visitors and users Placed collection of oral interviews at the Responded to public stakeholders’ interest beginning of the research process as per in Churchill Island’s landscape and land PINP and FOCIS requests* use** Provided PINP ethics approval drafts for Included location of 1801 garden as part editing and made the changes PINP of research and findings** requested.* Complied with Manteit’s requests to Included cannon provenance as part of include PINP’s documentation in research and findings** information packs sent to potential interviewees* Stayed on Churchill and Phillip Islands to Attempted to find links between sealing collect data locally* history in Western Port and Churchill Island** Met privately with FOCIS members and Tried to incorporate oral testimonies discussed project progress and findings collected in writing with them Sent Manteit a copy of a conference Created chapter (heritage) based on proceeding for editing and complied with Churchill Island archives** requested changes* Submitted articles for FOCIS’s Attempted to find evidence of continuous newsletter** farming history**

45

My most profound experiment, however, was my decision to release my findings as my research progressed, rather than waiting until the thesis was finished, something neither PINP nor FOCIS expected, but whose delight signalled that they had hoped this would occur. It was a strategy I borrowed from my office mate and peer, Fiona Davis, who was also working on a public history project, and whose prior experience as a journalist had provided her with the knowledge necessary to successfully run her project. While the strategy to release my findings as I went began as an exercise in transparency, it quickly occurred to me, and to my stakeholders, that this offered public stakeholders a means of contesting or criticising my findings. Since my public stakeholders had a greater emotional investment in my findings, their reactions to my efforts reflected this. In Lewis’s analysis of the Neighbourhoods project, she suggests that when levels of trust are high, stakeholders or partners will be more willing to share authority and that the obverse of this is equally true.167 When I published my original thoughts on the nature of the Pickersgill family’s role in Churchill Island’s settlement, for example, I greatly offended a key stakeholder with personal connections to the island by challenging his authority as meaning maker: ‘I am the Pickersgill family historian’ wrote an infuriated Laurie Thompson, who signed off the email with his position as the ‘great, great grandson of Winifred Pickersgill’.168 The skill set I had begun acquiring during Phase One of the project helped me to realise that I owed Thompson an immediate apology for way I had released my findings,169 but my lack of experience in sharing authority, together with the issues of trust that existed between myself and the project’s most important stakeholders meant that it also contained a detailed point-by-point refutation of Thompson’s arguments. Neither Thompson nor I were willing to cede our authority, although our resultant email exchange suggested that we felt there was still room for shared inquiry.170

167 Lewis noted that Rogers Park residents involved in the project did not have the same levels of trust in the Chicago Historical Society, and that as a result, they were ‘concerned with monitoring what story would be told and wanted to review all of the text’ unlike Douglas/ Grand Boulevard residents, who Lewis argues had a greater level of trust in the project and while willing to review work, expected Chicago historical Society ‘staff to use their skills and expertise in constructing the narrative.’ Lewis, ‘The Neighbourhoods Project’ in The Changing Face of Public History, 109. 168 Email correspondence with Laurie Thompson, 17, 18, 19, 20 March 2010. 169 That is I had not consulted with Thompson or any other representatives of the Pickersgill family prior to publishing my arguments in FOCIS’s newsletter. 170 Email correspondence with Laurie Thompson, 17, 18, 19, 20 March 2010. 46

Up to this point I have concentrated on the way in which relationships with the project’s public stakeholders framed the Churchill Island Project as a work of public history, and the time consuming nature of acquiring the necessary knowledge and skill set to practise reflectively with any measure of success. Academic stakeholders, however, had also exerted an influence on the project, not only with regard for their desire that I begin archival research, analysis and writing up at an early juncture, but because they had also suggested various scholarly apparatus that might help me better understand the records I was investigating. It was during the third phase of the project, however, that their influence became most apparent. This influence manifested in a number of ways: through their assertions of the importance and value of critical distance and dispassionate forms of analysis; their championing of the idea that the thesis contribute to academic conversations and their questioning of my experiments in sharing inquiry and authority. While the following chapter deals more thoroughly with the way in which academic stakeholders’ desires were addressed in my analysis of Churchill Island’s history, it is important to discuss here the ways in which their questioning of the project’s management affected the composition of this thesis more generally. Atalay and Barber have both commented on the time consuming nature of managing community or stakeholder input,171 and SHAPS staff and peers (including my supervisors) were certainly concerned about the time consuming nature of this work. Their reading of the contract that existed between the University of Melbourne and PINP meant that the only requirement for the successful completion of the project in their view was the completion of the thesis, its summary and collation of primary documents.172 In this context my efforts to share inquiry, and perhaps in smaller ways, share authority with the project’s public stakeholders were nice, but unimportant, and stole valuable time away from the composition of my thesis as well as draining me emotionally.173 Concerned supervisors and staff found it natural to offer a more academically focused project as the obvious solution; an offer became increasingly attractive in the light of continued failures to win over public

171 Atalay’s comments that CBPR ‘is time consuming’ applies equally well to public history projects, as indeed Barber’s comments about the length of her relationship with Chinook peoples suggests. Atalay, Community- Based Archaeology, 61, 239; Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’: 32. 172 The University of Melbourne, Student Research Project Agreement, 3 May 2007; Email from Andrew May to Eileen Rebecca Sanders, Sean Scalmer, Penny Edmonds, Sanders Contract, 23 May 2010. 173 I once declaimed to my postgraduate peers in SHAPS that I had become an expert in the composition of apologies. 47 stakeholders like Manteit.174 I took their advice, and disengaged from my formerly intense relationships with the project’s public stakeholders, something that became possible because Manteit was soon to leave PINP, and I had no formal relationship with anyone else in the organisation. Disengagement from my public stakeholders during the third phase of the Churchill Island project brought a number of advantages, the most important of which was an increased capacity to critically analyse Churchill Island’s history, and later, an improved skill set that enabled me to better analyse my management of the project.175

Critical distance is a useful tool in academia; it assists in encouraging researchers to question basic premises that seem natural, but are in fact constructed. While Atalay convincingly argues that traditional scholarly ideals of the researcher as ‘removed, neutral, objective, agenda-free researcher [is] nothing more than a myth’,176 my experience suggests that utilising the technique of academic dispassion can offers something ‘insiders’ can find difficult to achieve, as indeed I had found when FOCIS had adopted me as one of their own during the first phase of the project. Critical distance allowed me to propose solutions to Churchill Island’s historical conundrums, like the vexed question of who its first settlers were, or its importance within a broader narrative of settlement, without the pressure of having to immediately consider how the project’s public stakeholders would receive these ideas. This gave me the opportunity to refine my arguments before having to present them to an interested and therefore critical public.177 It also provided the (temporal) space required to reflect-on-action. Reflecting-on-action, something that would usually occur at the end of a project, allowed me to probe more deeply and more critically into my conduct of the project. This was not only cathartic,178 but usefully increased my capacity to engage successfully with the project’s numerous stakeholders by providing me with the means to obtain the improved

174 Whose demand that I send him any publications for peer review to him for editing prior to their submission, when I broached the possibility of publication during my candidature, and his reasoning for doing so suggested that while he had relaxed about our frequency of communication, he remained a very nervous client. 175 I am indebted to one of my examiners for drawing my attention to the fact that I had not clearly enunciated that prior learning and supervision had helped me to ‘problematise’ the Churchill Island Project, with regard to both project management and ‘interpretive frameworks’ during Phases One and Two. 176 Atalay, Community Based Archaeology, 83. Atalay also argued for a rejection of ‘value-neutrality’. Ibid., 78. 177 Rebecca Sanders, Some Initial Findings for FOCIS AGM 2011; Not Your Average Settlement Story FOCIS Meeting 10 November 2012. 178 Catharsis was not unimportant, as it allowed me to mentally clear my slate and eventually renew my experimentation with shared inquiry and authority. 48 knowledge and skill set that I required to successfully reflect-in-action.179 Critical distance also provided a means of identifying the academic conversations that my work would be enhanced by engaging with: microstoria, settler colonialism, and concepts of space and landscape, as well as the more obvious fields of heritage and public history, which would deepen my analysis of Churchill Island’s history.180 These ideas and the manner in which they have shaped this thesis are examined in greater detail in the following chapter ‘Augmenting a Public History Approach’.

While academic stakeholders were increasingly pleased with my progress on the thesis during Phase Three, constructing a product that engaged less with the project’s public stakeholders felt like failure. Phase Four of the project was therefore a return to my initial desire to create a product that would be useful and acceptable to the project’s public stakeholders, whilst still fulfilling the necessary requirements of an academic thesis. The first task was re-establishing relationships with the project’s public stakeholders. Beginning with the group with whom I had enjoyed the most supportive relationship proved a good choice. Attending FOCIS’s meetings resulted in assisting FOCIS with their submission to PINP for a formal museum to be established on Churchill Island,181 and in turn led to further collaborations with FOCIS member and Churchill Island Curator and PINP employee, Christine Grayden,182 through whom I slowly re-established my relationship with PINP. With increased levels of trust, I returned to my experiments from Phase Two, but with the benefit of hindsight, and the skills and knowledge it provides; correctly judging that the trust required to bring the project to successful conclusion would be best facilitated not through

179 Drawing on Schön, Stowe argues that to successfully hold a ‘conversation with the situation’ one must first acquire a certain level of knowledge or ‘know-how’. Stowe, ‘Public History Curriculum: Illustrating Reflective Practice’: 55. 180 This process was particularly assisted by Penny Edmonds, whose two year supervision of the project encouraged a more academic approach. 181At the 2010 November meeting FOCIS president, Stella Axarlis, breezily pronounced that ‘of course’ I would assist FOCIS—without feeling the need to ask me first. Far from being dismayed as I might have been during an earlier juncture of the project, since complying would more firmly embed me within the FOCIS community and increase the workload on a project that was already running behind, I was delighted, as it signalled FOCIS’s trust in me and receptiveness to my research findings. 182 I worked with Grayden on replacement for the information panels for the Churchill Island Visitor Centre, using my findings to replace some of the older information upon which they were based. It was a learning experience for both of us, as the changes I suggested made much longer text panels that will probably need to be trimmed back, and I felt afterward that perhaps I had unduly increased Grayden’s workload, if with the best of intentions. Grayden, however, seemed delighted for the most part in my interest and responses. 49 sharing inquiry, which was useful in terms of framing the project,183 but shared authority, which would provide the basis for reciprocity of trust that Atalay argues is vital if communities are to accept and use research findings.184 Critical distance during Phase Three enabled me to identify a number of features required to successfully execute shared authority: approachability, and its subset informality, were tools that could help stakeholders feel confident in voicing criticism or ideas, and time was an important mechanism that allowed adjustment, multidirectional dialogue and the refinement of ideas, as indeed my own disengagement from stakeholders during Phase Three had highlighted for me. I therefore began discussions about my now refined findings with public stakeholders well before they were set in stone.185 Reflection-in-action during Phase Four revealed that frequency and repetition signalled and then reinforced commitment on both sides, and this transformed exchanges between myself and public stakeholders into less formal affairs, normalising this process. These strategies greatly increased reception to new thoughts or ideas on both sides. In the case of the chapter on Churchill Island’s first settlers, I chose to change my argument in acknowledgement of a stakeholder with personal connections to the island, Laurie Thompson, whose very valid point that it was not possible to know just who had settled Churchill Island because of the conflicting and unclear nature of the evidence for both the Pickersgill and Rogers claims suggested an alternative history would be required. As a result of these discussions and particularly my correspondence with Thompson, some of the findings in this thesis have been co-produced.

Reflection-in-action during Phase Four also brought some the structural peculiarities of this thesis to the fore, and encouraged me to interrogate the reasons why I had chosen to represent certain portions of Churchill Island’s history in greater detail. The selective nature

183 Reflection-in-action during FOCIS meetings revealed the sufficient trust had now been established that they no longer saw the need for shared inquiry in any formal sense; instead we took to exchanging information through a series of informal emails in a way that helped me to further refine details of my research. 184 Ataly, Community Based Archaeology, 63, 128. 185 In the case of the museum submission, for example, I made sure I was available for a conference call with the FOCIS executive, listened to their ideas about how Churchill Island’s history should be presented and asked them about how they thought we might compromise on the two uncomfortable subjects of Churchill Island’s significance in the settlement narrative and the vexed question of who its first settlers were. At FOCIS meetings I introduced questions about the extent to which Churchill Island had a strong connection with farming history; issues of class and how these had shaped the island and even some of my methodological approaches including microstoria, ideas about space, place and landscape and settler colonialism. In return for listening carefully to my ideas, I listened carefully to theirs. 50 of history making, brought to the attention of Western scholars by E.H. Carr,186 was highlighted in the Churchill Island Project during discussions with both public and academic stakeholders. While my description of the project’s framing during Phase One explains why I responded to public stakeholders’ interest in Churchill Island’s history once it became public land by including a chapter on Churchill Island’s history as a heritage site, defining the role or purpose of this chapter had proved more problematic.187 Reflection-in-action during Phase Four, however, encouraged me to see the way this early chapter had effected the remaining composition of the thesis, helping to determine its focus on the colonial past, because this was the past that had been represented in Churchill Island’s various heritage landscapes, including the present one, as I discuss in further detail in Chapter Three. In this way, I realised that I had used a historical approach to answer important questions regarding the input of Churchill Island’s visiting public in this thesis. Rather than resorting to a social science methodology of questionnaires and surveys, which could only capture public opinion over a short duration, I had traced the ways in which and reasons why managements and visitors had co-constructed Churchill Island’s various heritage landscapes over a thirty-five year period. This approach usefully answered Merriman’s pertinent arguments about the overly elastic nature of just who the ‘general public’ are with regard to this thesis.

The ‘Public’ in the Churchill Island (Public History) Project

In defining public history: the story so far, I argued that the public in public history is a multi- vocal one, and so it has proved in the Churchill Island Project. Through the four phases of the Churchill Island Project, reflective practice helped me to define the public in this project as a set of stakeholders, comprised not only of sponsor PINP and special interest groups like FOCIS or individuals who had or have a personal connection to the island, but also of a broader public: its visitors, previous managements and members of the public who have held an interest in Churchill Island and its history. To ensure that this thesis is of use to, and used by these public stakeholders, including its broader public as defined above, this project has sought to share both inquiry and authority with its public stakeholders, to give them a voice

186 Edward Hallett Carr, ‘the Historian and His Facts’ in What is History The George Macaulay Trevelyan Lectures delivered at the University of Cambridge January–March 1961 (London; Bombay; Calcutta; Madras: MacMillan, 1969 reprint, first edition 1961), 5. 187 In early drafts, Chapter Three had sat at the tail end of the thesis as a capstone chapter, an approach popularised by Keith Hancock. Keith Hancock, Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man’s Impact on his Environment (London; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 152–6. 51 in how the thesis should be constructed, and what its findings mean. In the following chapter I discuss in greater detail how the Churchill Island Project’s academic stakeholders usefully enhanced my examination of Churchill Island’s history through their insistence that this thesis incorporate critical theories and methodologies and contribute to academic discussions. Chapter Three will then utilise these methodologies and theories to unpack how Churchill Island’s managements and visiting public co-constructed Churchill Island’s heritage interpretations over time, usefully identifying a broader public’s particular concern with the Churchill Island’s colonial history, and its place within a more general story of settler colonialism in Victoria.

52

Chapter Two: Augmenting a Public History Approach

Katrine Barber has argued for the importance of a critical approach in making public history, stating that ‘shared authority built a solid foundation for approaching partnered work...but it is not enough; it must be augmented’.188 This chapter explains why the Churchill Island Project’s framework of shared inquiry, shared authority and reflective practice needed to be augmented and how this was achieved. It responds to issues highlighted in the introduction and first chapter: namely the diverse and at times disconnected nature of this thesis’s sources, and the model of shared inquiry that directed the framing of the Churchill Island Project. It explains how the list of subjects chosen through the process of shared inquiry, and the academic nature of the product PINP had commissioned, resulted in an adoption of an interdisciplinary methodology which draws on several conceptual and methodological approaches to construct rich history of Churchill Island’s settlement and use as a heritage site. Doing so ensures that this thesis addresses the issue of the project’s competing research agendas and enables the Churchill Island Project to engage with academic discussions whilst providing public stakeholders with a carefully considered, rigorous history that the previous chapter documented they desired. This augmented public history approach189 utilises a combination of settler colonial theory and ideas about space and landscape that authors like Tracey Banivanua Mar, Penelope Edmonds, Patricia Seed, Gisele Burns and Paul Carter have employed in various guises to better explain how and why settlement occurred and the Italian methodology of microstoria to make better sense of how these critical theories can better explain the settlement of a small space like Churchill Island and what it meant. In doing so I argue that the incorporation of critical theory and methodology in public history projects is useful because it can provide public stakeholders with new information about the pasts they desire to preserve, or enhance existing understandings. Accordingly, this chapter begins with a discussion of the site and its nature as cultural landscape before moving onto an explanation of settler colonial theory and how this has helped me to analyse Churchill Island’s colonial past. I then explore the links made between settler colonial theory and space, looking in particular at the work of Henri Lefebvre, whose writings have offered settler colonial scholars in particular ways of unpacking an important aspect of the way in which settlers made new

188 Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’: 26. 189 The use of this term is specific to the way in which I conducted the Churchill Island Project. While I agree with an examiner’s comment that it has the effect of separating what should be an essential part of doing public history, that is the incorporation of ‘scholarly apparatus’, from the mechanics of shared inquiry, shared authority and reflective practice, I found this synthesis difficult to achieve in both my conduct of the Churchill Island Project and in the writing of this thesis. 53 societies—through the transfer of land from Indigenous people to settlers. I conclude with an examination of the Italian methodology of microstoria, which has assisted me in seeing how Churchill Island fits within these broader discussions and the usefulness of the exceptional normal as a tool to direct attention to difference, why such differences occur, and what these differences can tell us and so improve our understanding of larger processes through the detailed examination of small case studies like Churchill Island.

Churchill Island: A Cultural Heritage Landscape

This thesis is concerned with the history of a single site protected since 1976 for its presumed connections with the founding of the state. Drawing on the work of cultural geographers, the heritage field has used the term cultural landscape to describe and categorise landscapes that are ‘a combined work of nature and humankind, [expressing] a long and intimate relationship between people and their natural environment’ since at least the late 1980s.190 The idea that the present-day landscape of Churchill Island that I experienced during my field trips was a ‘palimpsest of the elements from the past and the present’191 was attractive, since it suggested that the physical landscape itself could offer a form of much needed primary source material that I could use for my research. While this idea turned out to be less suitable than I had envisioned, the idea of Churchill Island as a single entity or landscape, which indeed is the experience of anyone viewing it from Phillip Island’s shore, proved useful, since it encouraged me to view the site as being composed of rather more than its heritage listed buildings and trees.

As numerous writers have noted, landscape is a much contested term, with several competing etymologies all being used by various specialists and sub disciplines.192 For cultural geographers, landscape was originally a term used to define a geographical region,

190 Graeme Aplin, ‘World Heritage Cultural Landscapes’ International Journal of Heritage Studies 13, no. 6 (November 2007): 427, 430; UNESCO World Heritage Centre, ‘Cultural Landscapes’ available at http://whc.unesco.org/en/culturallandscape, accessed September 2013; David Jacques, ‘The Rise of Cultural Landscapes’ International Journal of Heritage Studies 1, no 2 (1995): 91, 95–6; Robyn Ballinger, An Inch of Rain and What it Means: Landscapes of the Northern Plains of Victoria, 1836–1930 PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2009, 7–8. 191 Aplin, ‘World Heritage Cultural Landscapes’: 430. 192 Indeed, Matthew Johnson has argued that two apparently mutually exclusive schools of landscape studies exist side by side, ‘each hermetically sealed from the other.’ Matthew Johnson, Ideas of Landscape (Maldon; Oxford; Carlton: Blackwell Publishing, 2007); See also Richard Muir, Approaches to Landscape (London: Macmillan, 1999), xvi–xviii, 2–5. 54 something promulgated by the sub-discipline’s American founder, Carl Sauer.193 This meaning has proved popular beyond the bounds of cultural geography, most particularly with those landscape archaeologists and historians who adhere to British academics George William Hoskins’ and O.G.S. Crawford’s arguments that landscape is something best understood through detailed field work, and with the aid of a ‘good pair of boots’.194 In this form, landscape is something that is experienced and which perhaps exists without the intervention of a viewer.195 As Matthew Johnson has compellingly pointed out, however, those who follow Hoskins’ and Crawford’s methods in fact ‘inscribe an all-powerful tool for understanding the landscape’, the gaze, through their use of maps such as ordinance surveys as well as aerial photographs.196 This ‘powerful gaze’, the top down view of the landscape notable in ordinance and survey maps, positions the viewer as a surveyor and commander, yet it has frequently been historically viewed as a positioning that is impartial and objective.197 Postcolonial scholars Byrnes and Simon Ryan have argued that this gaze was used as a method of replacing previous Indigenous understandings of landscape and space with new, Western conceptions, which in turn allowed Europeans to appropriate colonial landscapes and spaces as their own.198 For this reason many historical geographers, landscape archaeologists and historians, as well as art historians and critical theorists influenced by the linguistic turn and poststructuralism, prefer to use landscape more specifically to describe a prospect or view.199 This linguistic or deconstructive approach to landscape studies has been

193 Sauer defined landscape as ‘the unit concept of geography’, in his seminal work, The Morphology of Landscape. Peter Jackson, Maps of Meaning: An Introduction to Cultural Geography (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd; Winchester, Massachusetts: Unwin Hyman Inc; North Sydney, Wellington: Allen and Unwin, 1989), 13. 194 Matthew Johnson, Ideas of Landscape, 2, 34, 55. The influence of Christopher Taylor, specifically his insistence that landscape assessment begins from detailed fieldwork should also be mentioned here. Muir, Approaches to Landscape, 33. 195 In James Duncan’s words this definition sees landscape as being something ‘“out there”’, rather than ‘in one’s head.’ James Duncan, ‘Landscape and Geography, 1993–94’, Progress in Human Geography 19, no. 3 (1995): 414. 196 Johnson, Ideas of Landscape, 84; Simon Ryan, The Cartographic Eye: How Explorers Saw Australia (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 102–4. 197 Johnson, Ideas of Landscape, 85–90; Ryan, The Cartographic Eye, 6–7. 198 Byrnes, Boundary Markers, 4–5; Ryan, The Cartographic Eye, 10–11. 199 Such scholars commonly begin their work by tracing the term’s antecedence. In his influential 1995 article for example, published in the same year as Simon Schama’s Landscape and Memory, which similarly traced the term’s linage, geographer Duncan argued that this ‘painterly way of seeing’ had been borrowed from the Dutch Landschaft, which he argued was a usage disseminated primarily by the British. The other meaning of the term, according to Duncan, had originated from the German Landschaft and been promulgated by Americans through Sauer’s Berkeley school of geography. Duncan traced the use of a painterly understanding of landscape in the field of geography to the work of Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels during the 1980s, but more recent scholarship outside of the field of geography has traced a more complex and longer linage for this use of the word. Richard Muir, a landscape historian influenced by the trend towards interdisciplinary approaches, argues that Cosgrove and Daniels’ efforts to define and trace the linguistic antecedence of the word landscape in the discipline of geography, though arguably influential, had in fact been preceded by other scholars, most notably by John Barrell (1972) and Richard Hartshorne (1939). In his 1996 article, ‘Recovering the Substantive Nature 55 extremely useful in its ability to highlight the fact that landscape is an idea we construct, that is a text.200 Indeed, Banivanua Mar has argued that landscapes, both past and present, can be read as texts that narrate our relationships with ‘History, with a capital “H”’.201 My investigations into Churchill Island’s past suggests that such representational activities were part of a suite of ways in which indigenous landscapes were claimed by colonisers as their own through the structure of settler colonialism.

Settler Colonialism

Settler colonialism, historiographically speaking, is a relatively new field of inquiry.202 While the extent of its success in creating a separate field of study has been a matter of debate,203 this thesis draws much inspiration from its endeavours. In Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, Patrick Wolfe argued that settler colonies are distinctive due to their imperative to acquire land and the elimination of Indigenous societies (as opposed to the co-option of their labour) through a variety of means, including assimilation.204 ‘In the simplest terms,’ as Banivanua Mar and Edmonds write, ‘settler

of Landscape’, Kenneth R. Olwig made much of Hartshorne’s discomfort with the term landscape, specifically with Saur’s use of the German root, ‘which, unlike the English word, had an essentially double meaning’. The German Landschaft, according to Hartshorne means both ‘a restricted piece of land’ and also ‘the appearance of a land as we perceive it’. Hartshorne’s strategy was to completely abandon the term in favour ‘geography as a science of region and space’, but others since Barrell, most particularly David Lowenthal and Yi-Fu Tuan, have recognized that a ‘scenic approach to the study of human environmental perception’ can be extremely useful. British landscape archaeology and history have also used the regional meaning of the term, and this is perhaps why landscape archaeologist, Johnson, and landscape historian, Muir, therefore deal with these ‘duplicitous meanings’ by discussing landscape’s linguistic antecedence more as a side note, before concentrating the bulk of their attention on how the term has been used in practise, specifically by the related fields of cultural and historical geography, landscape archaeology and history. Duncan, ‘Landscape and Geography, 1993–94’: 414; Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory, (Harper Collins, 1995), 10; Muir, Approaches to Landscape, xv–xvii, 2–5; Johnson, Ideas of Landscape, 2–4; K.R. Olwig, ‘Recovering the Substantive Nature of Landscape’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 86 (1996): 630. 200 Ryan, The Cartographic Eye, 7–8, 101–4. Giselle Byrnes, Boundary Markers: Land Surveying and the Colonisation of New Zealand (Wellington: Bridget William Books, 2001), 12. 201 Tracey Banivanua Mar, ‘Settler-colonial Landscapes and Narrative of Possession’ Arena Journal no 37–38 (2012): 176–177. 202 Lorenzo Veracini, Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview (Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 7. 203 Specifically, whether it can claim to be a separate field of research in its own right, or whether it should fall under the broader rubrics of colonial and post-colonial studies. There has also some question of whether places like the United States should be classified as settler colonies. Anna Johnston and Allen Lawson, ‘Settler Colonies’ in A Companion to Postcolonial Studies Henry Schwarz and Sangeeta Ray, eds (Massachusetts, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000), 362; Tracey Banivanua Mar and Penelope Edmonds, ‘Introduction: Making Space in Settler Colonies’ in Making Settler Colonial Space: Perspectives on Race, Place and Identity, Tracey Banivanua Mar and Penelope Edmonds, eds (Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 2. 204 Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event (Writing Past Imperialism) (London, New York: Cassell, 1999), 1–3. 56 colonists went, and go, to new lands to appropriate them and to establish new and improved replicas of the societies they left.’205 According to Lorenzo Veracini, this process is not enacted by a central, distinct (and frequently distant) metropole (e.g. London), but largely (though not entirely) from within ‘the bounds of a settler colonial political entity’.206 For the most part, therefore, it was settlers themselves who set up, regulated and maintained their society. Importantly, settlers, unlike other types of migrants, did not accept the political conditions of the space in which they settled, but rather imported a new political order with them, and in doing so founded new societies ‘premised on the domination of a majority [of settlers] that has become indigenous’.207 Since this definition has been somewhat confusing to some of the public stakeholders of this thesis, it is important to unpack it.208 Veracini here is referring to settler colonists’ desire to completely replace the former Indigenous, i.e. Aboriginal society through assimilation, obfuscation or by more violent means, and through that process become a new indigenous population themselves.209 This is important, as it explains why settlers desired to erase Indigenous culture and spaces within settler colonial societies.

The ‘black armband’ history that former Australian Prime Minister John Howard decried during the History Wars asserted that the settlement of Australia was largely peaceful, and something to be proud of.210 As Veracini has noted, however, the ‘settler [who] hides behind his labour and his hardship’, who has ‘wrestled with the land to sustain his family’ is also the same overtly ‘peaceful settler’ who was content to enjoy the fruits of those who have cleansed the land before him or her, as I will demonstrate in Chapter Five.211 The colonial office and its governors, although uncomfortable with such actions, did not halt the tide of settlement and colonisation.212 This is not to suggest, however, that settlers operated without reference or regard to ‘home’. As Anna Johnson and Allen Lawson have argued, settler colonists did not enjoy complete autonomy, nor did they cease to feel colonial themselves. Settler colonial situations, therefore, could and did overlap with colonial

205 Banivanua Mar and Edmonds, ‘Introduction: Making Space in Settler Colonies’, 2. 206 Veracini, Settler Colonialism,4, 6. 207 Ibid., 3, 5. 208 To ensure I shared authority with the Churchill Island Project’s public stakeholders I offered a draft of this thesis to public stakeholders. This explanation answers a question from PINP Curator, Christine Grayden, who argued that I was using the term Indigenous in ‘two completely different ways’, and asked if I could explain this. Grayden, Comments by Christine Grayden on Rebecca’s CI Thesis, 3. 209 Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 3-5. Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, 3–4. 210 Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 3. 211 Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 14. 212 Bain Attwood and Helen Doyle, Possession: Batman’s Treaty and the Matter of History (Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, imprint of Melbourne University Press, 2009), 30, 61; NSWGG, no. 222, 28 May 1836, 395. 57 situations.213 In particular, settlers still looked to ‘home’ for the standards they used to measure their civilisation by, as I note in Chapter Six.

One of Wolfe’s major theoretical contributions to the study of settler colonialism is his assertion that one of the things that separates settler colonialism from other forms of colonialism is that in settler colonial societies and spaces ‘invasion is a structure, not an event’.214 Wolfe’s contribution here was to draw attention to the longue longue durée of settler colonialism: that it is not a one-off event lasting only as long as it took for settlers to establish themselves and their society, but rather a situation that is maintained, and which therefore continues past the initial moment of emigration or invasion, as I explore in the second part of this thesis. As Fiona Davis argues, the long term nature of settler colonialism has meant that its effects continue into the postcolonial era, which in Australia, begins with Federation.215 This being the case it is important to understand the mechanics of the manner in which settlers obtained land and made new settler colonial spaces.

Making Settler Space: Henri Lefebvre and Colonial Scholarship

To understand how settlers obtained land it is useful to examine the work of Henri Lefebvre and his critical writings about space. Lefebvre argued that rather than simply discussing how an ‘urbanizing capitalist mode of production functioned’ in the container of (urban) space, one should examine how space was produced in its totality.216 Space, Lefebvre argued, rather than being something used by people and occurring naturally, was in fact actively produced.217 More specifically, Lefebvre argued that rather than being the work of imagination and a single vision, space was a product of labour and organised society.218

A social space cannot be adequately accounted for either by nature (climate, site) or by its previous history. Nor does the growth of the

213 Johnston and Lawson, ‘Settler Colonies’, 363. 214 Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, 2. 215 Davis, Colouring Within the Lines, 13. 216 Unlike many French Marxists of the twentieth century, Lefebvre did not subscribe to structural Marxism and his writings about space were composed with a radical intent, specifically the creation of an ‘urbanistic theorization of the Marxist problematic.’ Andy Merrifield ‘Lefebvre’ in Thinking Space, Michael Crang and Nigel Thrift, eds (London; New York: Routledge, 2000), 168–9, 179. 217 Paul Carter echoed this idea in The Road to Botany Bay, when he argued that ‘Treating historical space as “natural”, passive, objectively “there” has the effect of draining what is most characteristic of Australian history of its historical content.’ Paul Carter, The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial History (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1987), xxi. 218 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 68–72. 58

forces of production give rise in any direct causal fashion to a particular space or a particular time. Mediation and mediators have to be taken in consideration: the action of groups, factors within knowledge, within ideology, or within the domain of representations.219

Lefebvre’s theories about the production of space thus do far more than highlight importance of human intervention, in say the manner of cultural geography’s founder, Carl Sauer, for whom ‘an understanding of the culture that created the landscape was requisite’.220 Lefebvre’s value to settler colonial scholars to date has lain not only in his insight into the way in which space is actively produced,221 but in his assertion that ‘new social relationships call for new space, and via versa’.222 The production of space, as Lefebvre’s work argues, is thus a political, as well as a cultural, environmental and economic act, because the types of space a society produces will reflect the ideals of that society; this is what makes Lefebvre’s work particularly useful to settler colonial scholars more generally and this thesis in particular.223

This thesis takes Lefebvre writings on space, conceived primarily with an urban environment in mind, and translates them to a rural locale. It does so because settler colonial scholars’ concern with the transfer of land from Indigenous peoples to settlers, and the ways in which this transfer facilitated the making of a new society, demonstrates the utility of an approach that goes beyond considerations of landscape, land use or place, but rather considers the relationship between space and society over time, responding to Lefebvre’s argument that history is an important means through which we can examine relationships

219 Ibid., 77. 220 Martin S. Kenzer, ‘Milieu and the “Intellectual Landscape”: Carl O. Sauer’s undergraduate heritage’, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 75 (1985): 258. 221 Banivanua Mar and Edmonds, ‘Introduction: Making Space in Settler Colonies’, 5. 222 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 59. Australian environmental and landscape historians have consistently asserted that the colonisation and later settlement of Australia resulted in not only new relationships between indigenous peoples and settlers, but also between peoples and the environment. Keith Hancock, Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man’s Impact on his Environment (London, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 31–131. See also Eric Rolls, A Million Wild Acres: 200 years of Man and an Australian Forest (Melbourne: Nelson, 1981); Geoffrey Bolton, Spoils and Spoilers: Australians Make their Environment 1788– 1980 (Sydney; London; Boston: George Allen & Unwin, 1981); William J. Lines, Great Southern Land: A History of Conquest of Nature in Australia (North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1991); Tom Griffiths, Forests of Ash: An Environmental History (Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 223 Lefebvre’s insight in to the ways in which people actively produced space suggested to him that different types of societies produced different types of space: ‘Since, ex hypothesi, each mode of production has its own particular space, the shift from one mode to another must entail the production of a new space.’ Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 46. 59 between people and the spaces they make.224 It is particularly interested in Lefebvre’s idea that space is produced through a triad of spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces.225 I interpret this to mean performance, cognitive or physical; descriptions of space, such as maps, photographs, journals, photographs or newspaper reports; and physical spaces like gardens, paddocks and other recognisable rural landscapes and their features. This triad of spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces has enabled me to examine the way in which Churchill Island was made not only though physical changes to its landscape, but through changing understandings, valuations and ideas, and their resultant practices. While Lefebvre does not provide an exact guide for historians to follow with regard to how these new spaces might be produced through this triad, Paul Carter, Patricia Seed, Byrnes and Ryan have demonstrated how the making of settler colonial spaces and landscapes can be deconstructed into smaller parts, usefully facilitating deeper analysis of this process. Carter’s influential work, The Road to Botany Bay, highlighted the way in which Australian space was made through language.226 This work has been complemented by Seed’s investigation into the ceremonies and symbolic acts of colonial possession, including physical transformations; Byrnes’s examination of the role of surveyors in making new spaces in New Zealand, and Ryan’s examination of maps and map making in making colonial and settler colonial space.227

Carter, Seed, Byrnes and Ryan’s works concentrate largely on the role of early actors in making colonial space, but as histories of abortive settlements and farming show, the relationship between exploration and other early activities like surveying and permanent

224 In The Production of Space Lefebvre argues that ‘If space is produced, if there is a productive process, then we are dealing with history.’ While Lefebvre, as a Marxist, argued that this productive process meant dealing with history, meaning Marx’ theory of historical materialism, it is possible to apply Lefebvre’s writings more broadly to include more general studies of the past. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 46. 225 ‘Spatial practice, which embraces production and reproduction, and the particular locations and spatial sets characteristics of each social formation. Spatial practice ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion. In terms of social space, and of each member of a given society’s relationship to that space, this cohesion implies a guaranteed level of competence and a specific level of performance. Representations of space, which are ties to the relations of production and the “order” which those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to “frontal” relations. Representational spaces, embodying complex symbolisms, sometimes coded, sometimes not, linked to the clandestine or underground side of social life, as also to art (which may come eventually to be defined less as a code of space than as a code of representational spaces).’ Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 33. Italics in original. 226 Indeed, Carter argued that ‘history that discovers the lacuna left by imperial history—begins and ends in language.’ Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, xx–xxiii, 17, 46–7. 227 Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640 (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 2–5; Byrnes, Boundary Markers, 2–8; Ryan, The Cartographic Eye, 4–6. 60 settlement was not necessarily a straightforward one.228 Moreover, as Edmonds and Banivanua Mar have demonstrated, settler colonial space was not only made through the work of

surveyors, fencing contractors or artists who reimagined land, or the architects, town planners or farmers who physically reshaped it, there were also the police, the architects of social policy, the census takers, the missionaries, the protectors and officers of Native welfare, or the town councillors who voted on by-laws and curfews, who recoded spaces as white and settled, wild and untamed, or hybrid and dangerous.’229

Administrative, legislative and philosophical frameworks, as Chapter Five demonstrates, provided important support and validation for settlement activities, and thus also played an important role in the settlement of spaces like Churchill Island. As Lefebvre suggests therefore, the making of settler colonial space was a complex process: ‘It is not the work of a moment for a society to generate (produce) an appropriated social space in which it can achieve a form by means of self-preservation and self-representation.’230 Indeed, as Julie Evans, Patricia Grimshaw, David Phillips and Shurlee Swain argued in Equal Subjects, Unequal Rights, ‘the gradual extension of the frontier in some colonies, and/or belated decisions to press for even more land (and its resources) in others, meant that [the destruction of Indigenous society and its land and its replacement by settler colonial society moved] in waves across a country over many decades’.231

This thesis takes Lefebvre’s injunction that ‘the history of space cannot be limited to the study of special moments’ but must ‘deal also with the global aspect’ or the context of that time and space seriously,232 as it does also Lefebvre’s arguments that moments of transition between different types of space are especially important.233 It chooses therefore to concentrate its gaze on moments of change or transition: the making and forgetting of a

228 Barbara Minchinton, ‘That Place’: Nineteenth Century Land Selection in the Otways, Victoria, Australia PhD Thesis University of Melbourne, 2001, 3–6; Warwick Frost, ‘Farmers, Government, and the Environment: The Settlement of Australia’s “Wet Frontier”, 1870–1920’, Australian Economic History Review 37, no. 1 (March 1997): 19; Wheeler, Who Owns Linton’s Past, 50; Wells, Colourful Tales of Old Gippsland, 159; Bowden, The Western Port Settlement and its Leading Personalities, 4–6. 229 Banivanua Mar and Edmonds, ‘Introduction: Making Space in Settler Colonies’, 6. 230 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 34. 231 Julie Evans, Patricia Grimshaw, David Phillips and Shurlee Swain, ‘Introduction’ in Equal Subjects: Unequal Rights. Indigenous Peoples in British Settler Colonies, 1830-1910, Julie Evans, Patricia Grimshaw, David Phillips and Shurlee Swain eds, (Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 2003), 7. 232 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 48. 233 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 46–7, 115–116. 61 colonial space at the beginning of the nineteenth century; the coming of permanent settlement; the subsequent adjustments settlers made to the landscape to meet the more complex needs of an increasingly secure settler colonial society, and Churchill Island’s transition from private to public land. In doing so this thesis follows Lefebvre’s injunction that in order to trace the genesis of space one should begin by ‘starting from the present and working our way back to the past and then retracing our steps’.234 While such an approach may not suit every historian, the nature of Churchill Island—specifically its operation as a heritage site—coupled with the public history nature of this project, has made it impossible not to be influenced by the present day landscape and its users when trying to imagine its past, as I explain in greater detail in Chapters One and Three.

Microstoria and the ‘Exceptional Normal’

For Lefebvre, the history, or rather the genesis of space, and an understanding of how that genesis occurs, is essential if we are to understand how spaces of the present operate.235 This thesis examines Churchill Island’s history as a case study of ways in which settler colonialism and its ongoing legacy has affected and continues to affect the way in which we make space, in Churchill Island’s case, a heritage space. It thus addresses a gap Banivanua Mar and Edmonds identify in scholarly work on settler colonialism and the need ‘attend to the local, [the] particular…the very micro-conditions which underpin, produce and reinforce settler spaces in our nominally postcolonial societies’.236 The value of such histories, from an academic point of view is their ability to challenge or refine our understanding of the past, to test how general theories about the past work when compared to the lived experience of real people.237 This is the general premise of the Italian school of microstoria, which emerged during the social turn.238 As both Giovanni Levi and Carlo Ginzburg’s writings on microstoria reveal, the Italian school of microstoria’s methodology was informed by its emergence during the social turn of 1970s and early 1980s, which were characterised by the

234 Lefebvre, 66. 235 Andy Merrifield, ‘Lefebvre’, 171. 236 Although it does not in general address ‘violent historiographies’, outside of chapter three, ‘Heritage Site: Genesis and Successive Transformations’. Banivanua Mar and Edmonds, ‘Introduction: Making Space in Settler Colonies’, 2. 237 Georg G. Iggers, ‘From Macro- to Microhistory: The History of Everyday Life’ in Historiography in the Twentieth Century: From Scientific Objectivity to the Postmodern Challenge (Hanover, New England: Wesleyan University Press, 1997), 108. 238 This usage is common in Iggers, ‘From Macro- to Microhistory’ and for the purposes of clarity has been reproduced here. Ibid., 111 62 cultural and political crises of that era, the rise of postmodernist criticism and what the French termed nouvelle histoire, which included the history of mentalities and as well as what the Anglo-speaking world calls history from below.239 The desire to undertake a microscopic investigation stemmed from the desire to avoid the overt generalisations and macrohistory popularised by the French Annales school of history,240 and also the desire to write a kind of ‘total’ history,241 one replete with detail and which considers as many angles and factors as possible.242

The Italian school of microstoria, to which this thesis adheres, is a methodologically refined form of microhistory,243 practised within a relatively strict framework. It begins from the premise that ‘the unifying principal of all microhistorical research is the belief that microscopic observation will reveal factors previously unobserved’.244 Methodologically then, microstoria is characterised not only by its reduction of scale, which is common to all microhistory, but by its practitioners’ belief that this change in scale will bring ‘out those contradictions which appear only when the scale of reference is altered’.245 It is a practice that therefore advocates the value of difference, and while not opposed to larger scale and thus more general histories, it seeks to problematise their concern with representative subjects and their construction of a neatly functioning worldview. As Levi argues, microstoria ‘tries not to sacrifice knowledge of the individual elements to wider generalisation’.246 To do so, microstoria uses close analysis to demonstrate the complexity of social structures, events and processes, which it argues are the ‘result of interaction and numerous individual strategies’.247 Society, for example, is less a clearly defined object, than ‘a set of shifting interrelationships existing between constantly adapting configurations.’248 Microstoria’s dependence on close analysis and its advocacy of the legitimacy of difference means that the archive under investigation is always the centre of the researcher’s project, rather than some over-arching

239 Giovanni Levi, ‘On Microhistory’ in Peter Burke, ed. New Perspectives on Historical Writing (Cambridge, Oxford: Polity Press, 1991), 93; Carlo Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory: Two or Three Things That I Know about It’, translated by John and Anne C. Tedeschi, Critical Inquiry, 20, no. 1 (Autumn 1993): 19, 22. 240 Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory’: 17. 241 Ibid.,24–27. 242 Ibid., 28. 243 Microhistory is an extraordinarily diverse practice, its only defining feature being its close analysis of a single event, small group, place or person. Numerous microhistorians disdain microstoria’s insistence on methodological rigour as well as its political agenda. 244 Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, 97. 245 Ibid., 107. 246 Ibid., 109. To paraphrase Jacques Revel, microstoria delights in the complex. Jacques Revel, ‘L’historie au ras du sol’ in Levi, Le Pouvoir au Village, cited in Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, 110. 247 Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory’: 33. 248 Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, 110. 63 theory, as indeed was the case with the Churchill Island Project. This, however, does not preclude practitioners of microstoria from using theoretical and other forms of abstraction and generalisation;249 rather microstoria attempts, through minute examination, to understand where such generalisations fail, where the loopholes or inconstancies lie, and how and why they function. Microstoria, as Giovanni Levi argues, is thus largely defined by its methodology, rather than by any theoretical framing, which are wide-ranging and diverse amongst its practitioners.250

Perhaps as a result of its emergence from the Annales School and the influence of Marxism, the Italian school of microstoria veered away from quantitative study, and the selection of historical subjects that were repetitive and could therefore be serialized, and instead pursued qualitative subjects.251 Their choice of subject was also notably different from other historical practices. Believing that the representative subjects often favoured by Marxist historians had a tendency to un-problematically illustrate general arguments,252 microstoria turned to anomalous subjects, or what Edorardo Grendi referred to as the ‘exceptional normal’.253 Ginzburg hypothesised that this kind of ‘more improbable sort of documentation’ was ‘potentially richer’, although somewhat frustratingly, he did not say why this is the case.254 Levi came closer when he argued that: if experimentation is not impossible in a weak science, then if ‘that aspect of the experiment involving the ability to reproduce the causes is excluded, even the smallest dissonances prove to be indicators of meaning that can potentially assume general dimensions’.255 What this means in practice is that investigations should focus on subjects, which in Matti Peltonen’s words, ‘do not quite fit’, which are ‘odd’, and therefore need ‘to be explained’.256 Churchill Island and its history offer just such an example.

One important concept that microstoria shares with the practice of public history its incorporation of a reflexive approach within its work. Both Levi and Ginzburg argue that the main body of the work, in addition to writing about the subject under investigation, should

249 Ibid., 109. 250 Ibid., 93. 251 Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory’:, 21, 33. 252 Ibid., 33. 253 Edoardo Grendi, ‘Micro-analili e storia sociale,’ Quaderni storci 35 (August 1977), 512 cited in Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory’: 33. 254 Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory’: 33. 255 Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, 109. 256 Matti Peltonen, ‘“Clues, Margins and Monads” The Micro-Macro Link in Historical Research’, History and Theory 40 (October 2001): 349. 64 also iterate how that investigation and the communication of its findings had occurred.257 Levi argued that ‘the procedures of research itself, the documentary limitations, techniques of persuasion and interpretive constructions’ should all be incorporated.258 Levi’s exhortations seem designed primarily to answer poststructuralist methodological criticisms, but Ginzburg’s writings about reflexivity and microstoria, which appeared two years later, illustrates something of a theoretical concern. According to Ginzburg

[A]ll phases through which research unfolds are constructed and not given: the identification of the object and its importance; the elaboration of the categories through which it is analysed; the criteria of proof; the stylistic and narrative forms by which results are transmitted to the reader.’259

As I noted in the preceding chapter, public historians have also chosen to employ a reflexive approach to answer similar concerns, namely the lack of theoretical or methodological frameworks, although in practice reflexivity has been most useful to public historians wishing to communicate with peers or for their own reference, rather than the general public, perhaps presuming that they are less interested in a project’s implementation that its results.260 The concept that a project has specific phases of research (which for Ginzburg clearly includes writing and transmission of findings) proved to be a useful concept in completing this thesis, as it helped me to more clearly analyse the nature of the Churchill Island Project, and how this affected the composition of this thesis, by separating the project into separate phases as I discussed in Chapter One.

In one aspect, this thesis does not adhere to the tenants of microstoria, and that is in its adherence to more recent poststructural arguments that historical study cannot investigate past events, only the traces left by them.261 While Levi may have argued that microstoria’s import lay in its mission ‘refute the relativism, irrationalism and the reduction of the historian’s work to a purely rhetorical activity which interprets texts and not events

257 Ginzburg argued strenuously that this should take a narrative approach, however Levi amongst others chose more normative social science structures for their work. Levi also notably differed from Ginzburg in his promotion of utilising quantitative methods alongside selective qualitative ones. Iggers, ‘From Macro- to Microhistory’:111; Peltonen, ‘“Clues, Margins and Monads”’: 349. 258 Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, 106. 259 Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory’: 32. 260 Which has not been the case with this project: while some public stakeholders have been less concerned with the project’s process to completion, others have been very interested indeed, as was demonstrated at my completion seminar, and in correspondence with Grayden and Thompson. Completion Seminar University of Melbourne, 9 March 2015; Email correspondence with Laurie Thompson, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23 March, 2010, 18 February, 13 March 2015; Email correspondence with Christine Grayden 8, 16 March 2015. 261 Constantine Fasolt, The Limits of History (Chicago; London: Chicago University Press, 2004), 5. 65 themselves’,262 my reading of this thesis’s sources together with my experience in the Churchill Island Project has demonstrated not only the importance of multiple voices in making sense of the past, with regard to shared authority and making meaning, but the impossibility of ‘knowing the past’, as indeed Pickersgill family historian Thomson argued.263 Similarly, the contradictions inherent in many of the sources utilised in this thesis have supported poststructural arguments and the linguistic turn that what historians really study are texts, constructed with a specific, if not always conscious purposes in mind, in much the same way that scholars of landscape influenced by the linguistic turn now believe that objects formerly thought of as objective and scientific, like maps, were in fact the result of specific needs and desires.264 These texts, are not composed of only written documents, but can comprise landscapes, images and even oral histories.

What I can agree with are Levi’s arguments that historical research is ‘not a purely rhetorical and aesthetic activity’.265 My observations during the Churchill Island Project, together with my research into its archives, support the contention that to many people, the past really matters, even if they do not always agree on just what that past was really like. In the following chapter, I examine Churchill Island’s history as a heritage site in response to Lefebvre’s injunctions that the genesis of the past should begin by studying the present and then work its way backward, and my own experiences of Churchill Island, which have informed my appreciation of its past. In doing so I address the idea of including a broader public’s ideas and understandings of Churchill Island’s past within this thesis by tracing its historical landscapes co-constructed by managements and visitors over the last thirty-five years, and using these landscapes as texts through which I can access not only present day opinions about Churchill Island from a broader public, but older understandings and valuations as well.

262 Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, 95. 263 Correspondence with Thompson. 264 Tony Bennett, ‘Texts in History: The Determinations of Readings and Their Texts’ and Ann Wordsworth, ‘Derrida and Foucault: Writing the History of Historicity’ in Post-structuralism and the Question of History, Derek Attridge, Geoff Bennington and Robert Young, eds (Cambridge; New York; London; New Rochelle; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 68–69; 116–9. 265 Giovanni Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, 94; See also Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory’: 32. 66

Chapter Three: Heritage Site: Genesis and Successive Transformations

As I delved into the records stored in Churchill Island’s archives, a diverse collection of photographs, official memorandum, notes and newsletters, it dawned on me that this was not a site that lent itself to cultural landscape analysis. Too much of the landscape had been altered during the thirty years it had functioned as a heritage site to use the present day landscape as a record of the past. The postcard worthy environs that I visited was so unlike the harsh landscape captured in photographs, drawings and the film Summerfield made during the late 1970s and early 1980s that it was impossible to miss the fact that while Churchill Island had been understood as a heritage landscape for over thirty years, agreement about what this meant had changed quite markedly over that period.

In this chapter I will be examining Churchill Island’s history as a heritage site: what it was made to represent, how this was achieved (or not), and why. Importantly, this chapter explains how Churchill Island came to be purchased by the state and the reasons why this was the case. It also examines the transformations wrought to the island by its first managers, the VCT, and its most recent management, PINP. The management of Churchill Island by both of these organisations is particularly noteworthy for the historian, because it is within these management eras that Churchill Island’s relationship with its past was most clearly enunciated.266 Both managements possessed a clear vision as to the island’s value and how it should be used. In tracing the history of Churchill Island as a heritage site, this chapter illustrates not only the manner in which heritage sites like Churchill Island are made, but more importantly with regards to this thesis, seeks to identify its historical landscapes.267 By reading Churchill Island’s historical landscapes during its time as a heritage site, I argue it is possible for this thesis to identify and address the concerns of a broader public, not only in the present day, but over time, because as Athinodoros Chronis argues, heritage sites are

266 Carroll and Amy Schulz both emphasised the wildlife aspects of the site when speaking of Victorian National Parks Service’s management (1983–1985) and the various iterations of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (which changed its name and some functions with successive changes in government). Notes and photographs from the Churchill Island Archives also reveal the emphasis placed on the Churchill Island’s natural features during this time. VNPS files, Maintenance and Management; Photograph Albums1–6; FOCIS, Newsletter, no. 12–59, (Summer 1983–Autumn 1996). CIA. 267 Banivanua Mar, ‘Settler-colonial Landscapes and Narrative of Possession’: 176–177. 67

Fig. 2 Churchill Island, circa 1983. Courtesy of Carroll Schulz.

Fig. 3 Churchill Island 1976. Sketch by Robert Ingpen.

Fig. 4 Churchill Island 2008. Author’s own. 68 co-constructed by visitors as well as heritage managements.268

Heritage sites, as Lefebvre’s writings about space would suggest, are produced much like any other space, and this being the case, they are produced and maintained to serve very specific purposes.269 In making a heritage site, managements not only decide the extent to which a site should be adapted, restored, maintained, conserved, or be allowed to fall into ruin through non-intervention, they also choose the site’s interpretation.270 Cultural geographers have greatly popularised the concept that a heritage site’s interpretation is a narrative constructed in the present to serve present day needs and desires, rather than a natural continuation of some bygone era.271 Writing about the preservation of Dunedin’s heritage in the 1990s, David Hamer succinctly remarked that ‘aspects of the past appeal insofar as they can be used to accomplish future-oriented goals.’272 As a close examination of Churchill Island first and most recent managements illustrates, however, the effects of a management’s organisational philosophy and its financial capacity can also be a significant factor in the presentation and function of a heritage site. Dallen J. Timothy has noted that diminishing public funding of heritage during the closing quarter of the twentieth century made finance one of the biggest concerns for heritage managers, because ‘Heritage

268 Athinodoros Chronis, ‘Constructing Heritage at the Gettysburg Storyscape’, Annals of Tourism Research 32, no. 2 (2005): 387–88. 269 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 53. See also Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1985), xxiii; C. 270 Even the last approach, which creates a relic landscape, requires managers to construct a particular valuation of the site, by both by halting prior activity and restricting future use and its impact. Graeme Aplin, Heritage: Identification, Conservation, and Management (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2007), 30–48, 69– 76; A.H. Martínez, ‘Conservation and Restoration in Built Heritage: A Western European Perspective’ in The Ashgate Research Companion to Heritage and Identity, B. Graham and P. Howard eds (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited; Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008), 246; Jeremy Salmond, ‘From Dead Ducks to Historic Buildings: Heritage Terminology and Conservation Planning’ in Common Ground: Heritage and Public Places in New Zealand, Alexander Trapeznik, ed. (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2000), 46–8; Dallen J Timothy, ‘Introduction’ in Managing Heritage and Cultural Tourism Resources: Critical Essays Volume One, Dallen J. Timothy, ed. (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited; Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007), xi–xviii; Hall and McArthur, eds, Heritage Management in Australia and New Zealand: The Human Dimension (Melbourne; Oxford; Auckland; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 38; Paul Eggert, Securing the Past: Conservation in Art, Architecture and Literature (Cambridge; New York; Melbourne; Cape Town; Singapore; São Paulo; Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 13. 271 B. Graham, G.J. Ashworth and J.E. Turner, ‘Introduction: heritage and geography’ in A Geography of Heritage: Power, Culture and Economy, B. Graham, G.J. Ashworth and J.E. Turner eds (London; Arnold; New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2000), 2. See also R. Jones and B.J. Shaw, ‘Introduction: Geographies of Australian Heritages’ in Geographies of Australian Heritages: Loving a Sunburnt Country? R. Jones and B.J. Shaw eds (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited; Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007), 1; Chronis, ‘Constructing Heritage at the Gettysburg Storyscape’: 387–88. 272 David Hamer, ‘Historic Preservation in Urban New Zealand: An Historian’s Perspective’, The New Zealand Journal of History 31, no. 2 (October 1997): 252. 69 management, in whatever form, requires an enormous budget.’273 Detailed analysis of sources documenting Churchill Island during its time as a heritage site reveals the extent to which the VCT and PINP’s very different organisational philosophies and financial capacities dictated their valuation, understanding and presentation of Churchill Island, usefully extending the more usual political interpretation of present needs and desires to include the practical elements that also inform heritage management and the making of heritage sites.274

A Tale Long Told Generates its Own Legitimacy275

Research completed for this chapter found that Churchill Island’s transformation into a heritage site was precipitated by and based on long held opinions about its past that predate its purchase by the VCT, or its inscription as a heritage site by Heritage Victoria or the NTV. A survey of Trove’s digitised newspapers revealed that interest in Churchill Island’s early colonial history has been long standing, and for much of the site’s twentieth century history it focused on a single event; the planting of a garden in 1801.Throughout the 1920s and 1930s numerous articles expounded, to varying degrees, on the importance of the sowing of crops on Churchill Island in 1801.276 During the 1930s Churchill Island’s managers, Bob and Ted

273 Timothy, ‘Introduction’ in Managing Heritage and Cultural Tourism Resources, xi. 274 Catherine Palmer, ‘An Ethnography of Englishness: Experiencing Identity through Tourism’ Annals Of Tourism Research 32, no. 1 (2005): 8–9. See also Dallan J. Timothy, ed., The Political Nature of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, Critical Essays, Volume Three (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited; Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007). 275 In The Road to Botany Bay, Carter argued that one of the effects of what he defined as a ‘cause and effect narrative history’ is that it gives ‘the impression that events unfold according to logic of their own.’ Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, xvii. 276 When the island was placed on the market in 1928, the Argus described Churchill Island as the ‘Cradle of Victoria Agriculture’ and even provided an aerial photograph to accompany the news of the island’s forthcoming sale, although not all advertisements emphasised the island’s historic features. ‘Cradle of Victorian Agriculture’ Argus, 14 November 1928, p. 5; Romantic Island: Placed on the Market’ Recorder, 13 November 1928, p. 1; ‘Island for Sale: Historic Associations’ Daily News, 24 November 1928, p. 8. The decision to promote the island in historic, rather than farming or leisure terms may have had something to do with the erecting of a cairn on neighbouring Philip Island in memory of the ‘Discovery’ of Western Port by George Bass, and ‘visits’ paid by various explorers, including Grant and Murray. The cairn had been erected as result of agitation by Sir James Barrett, then Chairman of the National Parks Committee, who had argued for the commemoration since November 1921. As part of the campaign Barrett organised a public lecture given by Charles Long of the Education Department and graced by the presence of the Victorian Governor and his wife (Lord and Lady Stradbroke) about Bass, Grant and Murray’s visits to Western Port. ‘Discovery of Westernport: Unveiling of Memorial Cairn: Interesting Historical Record’ Argus, 16 February 1923, p. 7; ‘Early Memories: Interesting Lectures’ Argus, 14 January 1922, p. 20. See also ‘Gippsland Publicity Campaign’ Argus, 19 December 1921, p. 11. It is possible that Barratt’s attention was drawn to the activities of early British and French navigators by an article published in the regional newspaper Frankston and Somerville Standard. 70

Jeffery planted a paddock of wheat in honour of the site’s history as the first place where wheat had been planted in Victoria.277 Throughout the remainder of the thirties and well into the forties Churchill Island was accorded a status of regional historical importance. Several writers either made the planting of crops on Churchill Island the subject of their newspaper articles, or included the creation of the 1801 garden as an essential part of their exploration and settlement narrative.278 When Churchill Island was sold in 1939 following owner Gerald Buckley’s death in 1936,279 an article in the Argus described the island as being ‘closely linked with the early history of Australia’.280 Then, in 1968, the Victorian Farmers’ Union, in conjunction with the Minister for Agriculture, erected a cairn commemorating the first sowing of wheat in Victoria.281 Churchill Island came to the attention of the VCT in 1973, when member John M. Swan saw an advertisement to sell it.282 The advertisement read:

‘Churchill Isle’ Frankston and Somerville Standard, 20 May 1921, p. 1. Further articles detailing Churchill Island’s history include ‘The Early History of Western Port’, 6 January 1922, p. 1; ‘A Trip Round the Island’, 03 February1922, p. 6; ‘A Naturalist’s Jottings’, 23 October 1925, p. 4; ‘Holiday Excursion’, 21 January 1927, p. 8; ‘A Centenary’, 10 December 1926, p. 3 Frankston and Somerville Standard. An auction notice for Churchill Island’s sale in 1929 paints an image of Churchill Island as a ‘unique seaside farm and beautiful home’, a ‘Pearl of the Sea’ with ‘Rich Volcanic Chocolate Soil’, and possessing a ‘Commodious Homestead’ with ‘easy access to neighbouring Newhaven’s Post and Telegraph Office. ‘Classified Advertising: Unique Seaside Farm and Beautiful Home’ Argus, 16 February 1929, p. 4. 277 Interview with Harry Cleeland, Phillip Island, 24 July 2007, Part One, 7:42–7:45, 21:58–22:08. 278 Origin of Victorian Agriculture’ Horsham Times, 20 December 1932, p. 8; ‘Victoria is Discovered: How the Country was Opened by Sea and Land’ Donald MacLean, Argus, 16 October 1934, p. 47; ‘Birthplace of Victoria’s Agriculture: A Century of Progress. An Interesting Survey’ Horsham Times, 23 October 1934, p. 8; ‘The “Little” Streets to the Editor of the Argus’, Argus, 15 September 1934, p. 21. Tough Questions First Wheat Grower in Victoria and Wimmera’, F.K. McK, Portland Guardian, 8 February 1943, p. 3; ‘First Sod Turned in Victoria: Portland or Westernport’ George R. Leggett, Argus, 21 Jul 1945, p. 12. Graeme Davison argues that interest in Australian history blossomed in the 1890s, and saw its second revival in the early twentieth century, which was marked by the emergence of ‘pioneer’ history. Graeme Davison, Use and Abuse of Australian History (St. Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 2000), 196–203. 279 Gerald Buckley’s nephew Mars Buckley, had come into the estate upon the childless’ Buckley’s death. Much has been made of the story that Gerald Buckley had promised the Jeffrey brothers. No will was found, however, and the island was thus transferred in the traditional manner to his kin. Mars Buckley subsequently sold the island to Harry Jenkins, according to Baird, in 1936, with the title deeds only being transferred in 1939. Baird, History and Her Story, 63, 70. 280 This article was republished in the Hobart’s Mercury, and erroneously described Churchill Island as having been settled by the French and its cannons (plural) as dating from their occupation. ‘It was settled by the French and several old cannon and other relics of this occupation remain. The old colonial house on the property was used for many years as a home by the Amess family, and later by the late Mr Gerald Buckley.’ ‘Historic Island Sold: In Westernport Bay’ Argus, 24 May 1939, p. 11. 281 The cairn’s plaque commemorates ‘the first cultivation of wheat in Victoria by Mr James Grant in 1801 on this land known as Churchill Island’. Farmers Union Cairn, Churchill Island, photograph, author’s own, 20 June 2008. 282 John Melvin Swan acquired a house on neighbouring Phillip Island sometime between 1972 and 1975, when the Shapiro Report (Western Port Bay Environment Study) was released. Professor Ross Brown, Interview with Professor John Swan, transcript, Australian Academy of Sciences available at 71

‘Words do not adequately describe this superb and restful haven in sheltered waters of Westernport By, with magnificent views of both land and sea—teeming with fish and birdlife and steeped with history.’283 Such an assessment clearly built on a history of valuing the site for its presumed connections with early colonial history. Struck by how closely the advertisement aligned with the VCT’s charter, Swan urged the VCT to approach the Victorian State Government to obtain the necessary funds for its purchase.

Churchill Island, its Purchase and Transition into a Heritage and Conservation Site

A statutory authority created under the Victorian Conservation Trust Act (1972), the VCT was given the power to preserve areas that were deemed ‘ecologically significant; of natural interest or beauty; or of historical interest’.284 Its government funding was minimal, and the money required to maintain properties had to be obtained entirely through fundraising, or the use of connections that might provide aid in kind.285 Although it more frequently worked in tandem with private landowners through the creation of charters, the VCT was also empowered to purchase property, subject to cabinet approval, in order to carry out its charter of preservation.286 In general, its properties were rural, unimposing if aesthetically pleasing and significant only on a local or regional scale, but its portfolio, gathered over the course of a mere twelve years, was considerable.287 On 18 May 1973 the VCT formally petitioned

https://www.science.org.au/node/335466 accessed 13 January 2015; See also Centre for Aquatic Pollution Identification and Management, Understanding the Western Port Environment: A Summary of Current Knowledge and Priorities for Future Research (Melbourne: Melbourne Water, 2011), 6 available at http://www.melbournewater.com.au/aboutus/reportsandpublications/Research-and- studies/Documents/Understanding_the_Western_Port_Environment.pdf accessed 13 January 2015. 283 Letter from Vice-Chancellor, Monash University, Professor J.M. Swan to Mr Howard Race, Secretary, Victorian Conservation Trust, Ministry for Conservation, 13 April 1973; Copy of Ministry for Conservation cutting of advertisement from The Age, 12/5/73. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 284 It was also provided with the power to preserve areas for their ‘wildlife and native plants’. Victorian Conservation Trust, Report 1983–4, p.3. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 285 Its connections were very good courtesy of the make-up of its members, many of whom were drawn from the upper echelons of Victorian society, and its board was comprised of a number of illustrious persons, including Professor John. M Swan Vice-Chancellor of Monash University and Sir John Knott. Colonel Ian J. Wilton was the executive director. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 286 While most of these charters involved making the property, or part of the property open to access by the public, the emphasis appears to have been on preservation rather than recreation, and visitor numbers were often kept down through restricted opening hours and other management solutions. Victorian Trust for Nature, Conservation Bulletin (2001): 5. Victorian Trust for Nature, Conservation Bulletin (2001): 5. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 287 Letter to Messrs. Clarke, Richards, Grant & Co. from Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, 4 December 1980. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 72

Premier R.J. Hamer to grant the VCT the ‘financial support’ it required to purchase Churchill Island, arguing that Churchill Island ‘is of considerable importance to the State from both a historic and conservation point of view and [the VCT] considers that the coming sale represents the ideal opportunity for the property to be acquired for the benefit of the people of Victoria.288

Churchill Island offered the VCT beauty, natural features and history, but original documents from the VCT’s files housed in the Churchill Island Archives make it clear that it was Churchill Island’s history and magnificent bird life that truly fired the VCT’s interest. According to the VCT water birds were ‘the outstanding feature of this island’s present fauna’.289 To the VCT, the planting of wheat and other crops on Churchill Island in 1801 was a major historical event, and the surviving cottages that dated from the 1860s perfectly illustrated the life of early Victorian pioneers.290 The VCT’s submission to Premier Hamer argued that Churchill Island was important because it had ‘close historical associations with the founding of [the Victorian] State’, and was very much concerned with Churchill Island’s claim to be a site associated with the beginnings of settlement, if on a regional level.291 In The Road to Botany Bay, Carter argues that memorialising or remembering ‘firsts’ is a European method of legitimising history, a way of beginning the process of creating narrative order from the historical ‘soup’ of facts, people and places, or, in Carter’s words, a way of showing the ‘emergence of order from chaos’.292 This process of legitimising a settlement narrative ignored the Indigenous contributions of Western Port’s Boon Wurrung. As the following chapters argue, it also led the VCT to make too much of an historic first that lead neither to

288 Letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer from John Knott, Chairman, Victorian Conservation Trust. 18 May, 1973, p.1–2. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. It is possible that its importance as a conservation site had been highlighted by Premier Bolt’s plan to greatly industrialise Western Port. Brown, Interview with Professor John Swan, transcript, Australian Academy of Sciences available at https://www.science.org.au/node/335466 accessed 13 January 2015. 289 There were also suggestions for the introduction of koalas and small marsupials such as potoroos onto Churchill Island. Cabinet Submission: Churchill Island, 2. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 290 Ibid. 291 Letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer from John Knott, Chairman, Victorian Conservation Trust. 18 May, 1973, p.1. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island— Purchase Of. Lowenthal has described this concern with beginnings as ‘primordial’ heritage. According to Lowenthall, the primordial illustrates an interest in origins rather than ancientness—the question of age here is unimportant—what matters is the search for a beginning. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, 55. 292 Carter, seemingly unaware of Lowenthal’s use of the phrase ‘cult of origins’, somewhat disparagingly refers to a ‘cult of first-comers’. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, 55; Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, xviii, xvi. 73 the further development of the Churchill Island by Europeans, nor the settlement of Victoria more broadly, as the VCT’s interpretation of Churchill Island suggested.293

The VCT’s vision of how it would manage Churchill Island's historical legacy was outlined in a cabinet submission, which stated their intention to ‘restore the island to a state something like its condition when Grant first saw it’. This restoration was to be achieved through the establishment of native plantations and the preservation of the area’s bird life, which as mentioned above was also considered to be an important aspect of the island.294 The idea was that this transformation would not only encourage people to think about an historic first, but would also demonstrate to visitors what ‘what Phillip Island was like before burning and clearing was carried out by the settlers,’295 illustrating the power of the modern environmental movement’s ideology on government organisations like the VCT. This argument is further supported by the fact that the VCT envisioned that Churchill Island would form part of Phillip Island’s proposed Nits wildlife reserve,296 with the smaller Churchill Island serving as an example of the impact of human settlement on a presumed ‘natural’ environment, presenting visitors with a combination of a pioneer/conservation landscape. The birdlife and replanting of trees would illustrate a natural ‘before’ and the settlers’ cottages from the 1860s an ‘after’ settled landscape. The VCT, however, had some difficulty making their pioneer/conservation landscape. In the first instance, it took some time for them to acquire the site. Although the VCT obtained a government promise to purchase the island, a limit was placed on the amount the Hamer Government was willing to expend. When the government bidder was beaten at auction by Alex Classou, proprietor of Patra Fruit Juice Co., the VCT attempted to get him to sell or open up Churchill Island to public visitation by various means.297 Finally obtaining an offer of ‘first refusal’ in 1975, it oversaw the purchase of Churchill Island ‘for the people of Victoria’ in 1976, which ironically for the state government was rather more expensive than the limit they had set their bidder in 1973.298

293 This argument is further expanded in Chapters Four and Five of this thesis. 294 Cabinet Submission: Churchill Island, p.1. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 295 Ibid. 296 Ibid. 297 The most bizarre of which was undoubtedly the plan to transform the island into a museum of Greek culture. 298 This phrase was used in newspaper reports on the island’s purchase in 1976. Letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer, E.D., M.P., Premier, Treasurer and Minister of the Arts from John Knott, Chairman, 10 February, 1976. Churchill Island was purchased for the sum of $400,000. Letter to Davis Campbell & Piesse, Solicitors from Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust, 4 December, 1975. CIA, VCT, File 332- 2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 74

By 1976, Churchill Island was safely in the VCT’s hands, but it struggled to find the funds necessary to prepare the site for public visitation. Not only did the site require the construction of paths to control visitor flows and amenities like a toilet block that could cater for group visits, its historic buildings also required urgent structural repairs. Added to these were works the VCT desired to carry out with regard to its vision of transforming Churchill Island into a pioneer/conservation landscape. The VCT’s response to finding themselves unable to fund any works on Churchill Island was to establish the Churchill Island Restoration Group (hereafter CIRG), in May 1976, which would be responsible for obtaining the necessary donations in kind or cash, the precursor of FOCIS, which was formed in 1980 with a similar purpose, but a very different mode of operations.299 It was two years, however, before the CIRG officially launched their fundraising drive; in the meantime, the island was leased as an agistment property.300 While the tone of CIRG and VCT’s communications suggests that such relaxed pacing did not unduly trouble the VCT, it did not meet with the approval of the Phillip Island Wildlife Officer Charles Nancarrow.301 Nancarrow’s strongly worded letter stated unequivocally that the agistment of the island was resulting in the further dilapidation of the buildings and fences, weed infestations, damage to the island’s gardens by

299 Letter to Sir Charles McGrath from John Knott, 21 April 1976, p. 2. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group—General. The CIRG, like its parent organisation, the VCT, was reliant on traditional models in terms of its composition and operation: company executives leant their time and expertise, and made use of their connections to engage in cold calling and writing begging letters to other companies to obtain corporate donations. The CIRG was composed of executives and middle managers of major Australian companies, and chaired by Sir Charles McGrath Companies who volunteered executives and mangers’ time and expertise to this group included Actrol Limited, Myer Emporium, H.C. Sleigh Limited, Comalco Limited, Broken Hill Proprietary Limited, Australian Consolidated Industries Limited, Ansett Transport Industries Limited, Mayne Nickless Limited and Siddons Industries Limited. Letter to Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust from W.S. Morgan, General Manager—Administration, Australian Consolidated Industries Limited, 21 June 1977; Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, letter to A.L. Tremby, Manager—Environmental and Special Projects, H.C. Sleigh Limited, 31 May 1977, p.3; Letter to Mr. G. Salthouse, Financial Controller, Actrol Limited from Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, 4 July 1977; Letter to Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust from R.H. King, 17 June 1977: CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group—General. 300 Which occurred on 8 August 1978. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group—General. 301 Archival records kept by the VCT do not provide any reasons why it took so long for the CIRG to officially open the fund for donations, although they do document the erratic pace the VCT adopted with regard to Churchill Island during 1976 and 1977. Unspecified meeting or event hosted by Sir Charles McGrath 13 October 1976; Undated memo. Barbeque at Churchill Island 28 November 1976; Letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer, E.D., M.P., Premier, Treasurer and Minister of the Arts from John Knott, 30 November 1976; Luncheon, place not specified, 6 April 1977; Letter to Col. I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust from Sir Charles McGrath Chairman Repco Limited 31 March 1977; Barbeque 8 May 1977, place unspecified, Unspecified memo of guest list for event; Letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer, E.D., M.P., Premier, Treasurer and Minister of the Arts from John Knott, 19 May 1978; Letter to I.J. Wilton Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust from Charles Nancarrow, Wildlife Management Officer, Phillip Island. Date unknown, but probably 1977–1978. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group—General. 75 stock and the dumping of bottles next to the half cellar, not to mention theft.302 His recommendation that Churchill Island be ‘properly developed’303 appeared to have some effect, resulting not only in the official launch of the CIRG fundraising drive, but also in the hiring of a dedicated caretaker for the island and later manager, Carroll Schulz, whom the VCT convinced to commence full time on a part time wage.304

To assist them in their task of begging corporate donations the CIRG designed a three stage process of alteration for Churchill Island in conjunction with the VCT. Each phase was costed at $150,000.305 Phases One and Two included a re-afforestation project, purchase of land for a car park adjacent to Churchill Island, temporary repair of the bridge (which had been built whilst under private owner ship in 1953),306 provision of temporary car parking facilities, construction of a toilet block, restoration of the historic buildings, development of

302 Harry Cleeland has spoken of a punt being loaded with items from Churchill Island during the night, with goods then transferred onto a truck never to be seen again. Various events held by the VCT during 1976 and 1977 were designed to encourage the high profile business leaders (and their families or partners) attending to become involved in funding the island’s restoration. The nature of these events also led to some criticism of the VCT. Nancarrow also argued that there was a suggestion that Churchill Island, despite being purchased for the people, was possibly being used as a ‘holiday island for the Ministry for Conservation’. Letter to I.J. Wilton Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust from Charles Nancarrow, Wildlife Management Officer, Phillip Island. Date unknown, but probably 1977–1978; Unspecified meeting or event hosted by Sir Charles McGrath 13 October 1976; Undated memo. Barbeque at Churchill Island 28 November 1976; Letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer, E.D., M.P., Premier, Treasurer and Minister of the Arts from John Knott, 30 November 1976; Luncheon, place not specified, 6 April 1977; Letter to Col. I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust from Sir Charles McGrath Chairman Repco Limited 31 March 1977; Barbeque 8 May 1977, place unspecified, Unspecified memo of guest list for event; Letter to The Hon. R.J. Hamer, E.D., M.P., Premier, Treasurer and Minister of the Arts from John Knott, 19 May 1978. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group—General. 303 Ibid. 304 Arnis Heislers, formerly of National Parks Victoria, said he was asked to stay on Churchill Island to avoid further theft prior to Schulz’s hiring as caretaker. Carroll Schulz was hired first as a caretaker, then as a manager, for three days a week on the understanding that he and his wife Amy would volunteer the other two days. Carroll Schulz had to threaten to quit his job a year or two later on the grounds that his wage was insufficient to pay his mortgage on Phillip Island before the VCT finally took the business of funding his position more seriously. Amy’s unpaid incorporation into the enterprise through her volunteer labour is worth noting, as it illustrates the way in which her unpaid labour as Carroll’s wife was assumed. Comparison with the history of the NTV suggests that the VCT’s expectance of the Schulz’s unpaid labour was commonplace at the time. Carroll Schulz, Caretakers and Stewards of the Land (unpublished memoir: 1999), Carroll Schulz, private collection. See also Interview with Carroll and Amy Schulz, Coronet Bay, 10 December 2007; Mary Ryllis Clark, In Trust: The first forty years of the National Trust of Victoria, 1956–1996 (Melbourne: National Trust of Australia, Victoria, 1996), 39. 305 Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, letter to A.L. Tremby, Manager-Environmental and Special Projects, H.C. Sleigh Limited, 31 May 1977, p.3. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group—General. 306 The construction of which tragically cost the original builder his life when his tractor plunged through the poor quality timber purchased for the job, trapping him under the water and mud of the bay between Churchill and Phillip Islands. Interview with Harry Cleeland, Phillip Island, 24 July 2007. 76 walking tracks and the instillation of caretaker Schulz, who would be provided with a residence on Churchill Island. Phase Three envisaged the construction of a footbridge and permanent car park, provision of a pollutant free tourist vehicle, development of a historic farm and erection of a recreation of Grant’s blockhouse erected in 1801.307 This detailed plan illustrates the VCT’s adherence to their original 1973 plan of making a pioneer/conservation landscape. It also documents their desire for Churchill Island to eventually be self-funding, indicative that the VCT did not view itself as long-term managers for the site, but rather as a facilitator in conservation. The CIRG and VCT’s plan for Churchill Island, however, proved impossible to carry out, largely because it was impossible to fully fund. Over the course of the next seven years, the CIRG raised a total of $82,993, well short of the projected $450,000.308 From this point onwards, the number of companies willing to sponsor the restoration of Churchill Island dwindled.309 As a result, the three-stage process the VCT and CIRG had jointly proposed was substantially modified. Phases One and Two were completed at a much lower standard than originally envisaged, and Phase Three was never attempted. A ‘make do’ approach was adopted for both the restoration of the island’s natural habitat as well as the settlers’ cottages and farm buildings that would form part of the pioneer landscape. Churchill Island was officially opened to the public on December 1981.310

Making a Pioneer/Conservation Landscape

Carroll Schulz saw fit to document the changes made to the island by the VCT in their efforts to make their pioneer/conservation landscape, which is fortunate for both historians and heritage professionals, as the VCT’s own documentation of changes to the island at this point are not as fulsome as they might be.311 Alterations began in 1978, including the reforestation

307 Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, letter to A.L. Tremby, Manager-Environmental and Special Projects, H.C. Sleigh Limited, 31 May 1977, p.3. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group—General. 308 With the best results occurring between 1978 and 1980: $17,492 in 1978; $26,699 in 1979 and $19,245 in 1980, or a total of $63,436 for these years. Letter to the Chairman of the Victorian Conservation Trust from Kimberly C. Smith, Chartered Accountant, 28 August 1981. Auditors Report: Churchill Island Restoration Group Statement of Income and Expenditure. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group— General. 309 Most explained that worsening economic conditions had led them to decrease their annual donations to charity, and that they were using greater discretion in what they would help finance. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-7 Churchill Island Restoration Group—Unsuccessful Applications for Donations; Clark, In Trust, 59, 63. 310 Although informal and school tours began before this date. FOCIS, Newsletter, no. 6 (Summer, 1982): 1. 311 For details of the years between 1976 and 1978 see Letter to Keith from Carroll Schulz, 17 June 1998. Full details of projects from1976–1990 can be found in Carroll Schulz, To FOCIS Executive and Staff, Churchill 77 project that the VCT, CIRG and outside organisations like the Victorian National Parks Service (hereafter VNPS) hoped would return Churchill Island to a state prior to European use. Over the course of the year, 15,000 trees donated by the Australian Paper Manufacturing Company were planted on the northeast of the property by a variety of volunteer groups and the Burnley Horticultural College students in an attempt to recreate the landscape of Grant’s 1801 visit.312 Trail notes created for guided tours attest that its placement adjacent to the cairn celebrating Grant’s planting of Victoria’s first crop of wheat, and in sight of the main house and settlers cottages, was designed to encourage visitors to make a connection between a presumed natural landscape and the coming of settlement and resultant environmental change.313 Unfortunately for the VCT, many of the trees donated, in particular the large number of Eucalyptus planted along the north and northwest shore of the island, were not in fact native to the island or surrounding area. As Schulz argued, the replanting of these non- indigenous species defeated ‘the basic aims of restoring the original vegetation’.314 The lack of authoritative information available to the VCT before their replanting project took place was almost certainly a major reason why these inappropriate species, considering the VCT’s vision, were planted. Churchill Island Master Plan: An Environmental Approach to the Assessment of Land Use Alternatives was not completed until 1980, although this document’s preference to base work on the environment of the present, rather than historical research may not have made it particularly helpful in accurately recreating the landscape of Churchill Island circa 1801.315 Certainly Churchill Island: An Historic Garden Conservation Study, completed in 1982, would have been more useful, as this document not only examined

Island: Projects Record from 1976 (original copy provided by Carroll Schulz, unpublished report for FOCIS, 1996), Carroll Schulz, private collection. See also Interview with Carroll and Amy Schulz, Coronet Bay, 10 December 2007; CIA, VCT, File 332-2-9 Churchill Island—Master Plan. 312 In a draft of the media release for the official launch of the CIRG Churchill Island Appeal, the VCT described the tree planting in the following way: ‘Many volunteers are assisting the V.C.T. to restore Churchill Island. Burnley Horticultural College students, Westernport district and metropolitan schoolchildren, Girl Guides, Boy Scouts, Ranger Scouts and Lions club members have helped to plant 15,000 trees donated by A.P.M. and pruned the existing trees and weeded the century old garden.’ Victorian Conservation Trust, Draft. News Release: Churchill Island Appeal Launch, 8 August 1978. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-5 Churchill Island Restoration Group—General. 313 VCT, Churchill Island Trails: Trail No. 3 The Cairn Trail, no date. Patricia Baird, private collection. 314 Carroll Schulz, memo to David Graham A/Sec. FOCIS RE: Moonah Remanent & Revegetation 30 May 1996; C. Schulz, To FOCIS Executive and Staff, Churchill Island: Projects Record from 1976 p. 39. (unpublished report for FOCIS, 1996). Carroll Schulz, private collection. 315 Roger Martin, Churchill Island Master Plan: An Environmental Approach to the Assessment of Land Use Alternatives. A Report to the Victoria Conservation Trust Prepared by Roger Martin, Ann McGregor, Steven Mathews Centre for Environmental Studies University of Melbourne May, 1980 (Melbourne: Centre for Environmental Studies University of Melbourne, 1980), 57. 78

Churchill Island’s European gardens over time, but also its more natural features—including vegetation.316 In addition to planting the Eucalyptus, the VCT also removed or relocated a number of items on the island. Some of these had fallen into such disrepair or were in such poor condition restoration was not possible.317 Others like the clothesline and water tanks, for example, were removed because they provided visual reminders of the island’s twentieth century occupation, as did the glasshouse that visitors complained was interfered with their efforts to photograph the pioneer cottages.318 These complaints illustrate not only the desire of visitors to experience an authentic heritage landscape, where they could imagine themselves experiencing past world that no longer existed, but their ability to impose such expectations onto heritage mangers.319

316 J. Dyke and R. Spencer, Churchill Island: An Historic Garden Conservation Study, Melbourne, Royal Botanic Gardens, Department Crown Lands and Survey, 1982. Department of Primary Industries Library. 317 These included a large farm shed purported to be part of the Cob and Co Coach House from Hastings imported to the island by Amess (the other half of which formed the barn mentioned above); Removed in 1977. C. Schulz, To FOCIS Executive and Staff, Churchill Island: Projects Record from 1976, 5. Carroll Schulz, private collection. Horse works, no date for removal provided. FOCIS purchased the current horse works in the Churchill Island agricultural museum from M. Weatherhead of Tynong. Ibid. Three water tanks and their stands in 1977 and 1983. Ibid., 8. Clothesline. Ibid., 8. Sandpit, removed in 1982. Ibid., 9. Poultry yard and pens, removed and cleared in 1983. An alternative poultry pen was built in the service area, but this was later transformed into a potting shed in 1994. Ibid. Fernery demolished in 1981. Ibid., 6 Shelter belt of pines infested with sirex wasps. The pine trees, which were estimated to have been planted circa 1910 stretched along the eastern boundary of the main house garden, providing ‘shelter belt from the easterly salt-laden winds’. Ibid., 3. Jenkins’ passionfruit plantation. After the removal of the pine shelter belt this ‘burned off’ after each easterly wind change and was removed on the advice of the Burnley Horticultural College. In order to save the orchard planted to the northwest of the main house, the horticultural college planted a temporary belt of Sheoaks to the north of the main house, as a partial replacement for the pines in 1978. Ibid., 4. 318 The glasshouse built for Margaret Campbell was relocated to the service area. It was enlarged by the Friends of the Kolas in 1994. The bathhouse, which had had two toilets (male and female) installed inside prior to the VCT’s purchase (presumably by Classou) was used by visitors, staff and volunteers until 1981, when it too was relocated to the service area, with a new toilet block erected in the same year. Ibid., 6. 319 For work regarding the subject of authenticity in heritage an visitor perception see Gianna Moscardo and Philip L. Pearce, ‘Historic Theme Parks: An Australian Experience in Authenticity’, Annals of Tourism Research 13, no. 3 (1986): 477; Dydia DeLyser, ‘Authenticity on the Ground: Engaging the Past in a California Ghost Town’ in The Political Nature of Cultural Heritage Tourism, Critical Essays, Volume Three, Dallen J. Timothy, ed. (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited; Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007), 151–3, 166. 79

Fig. 5 Restoration work on bakehouse chimney. Courtesy of Carroll Schulz.

In 1980, the VCT began its works on the island’s heritage buildings. The barn, which was in very poor condition, was reclad, using inauthentic treated pine, instead of Baltic.320 The following summer of 1981–2 the two 1860s cottages were also partially reclad, this time using ‘used’ weatherboards to replace the rotting west wall of the dormitory wing.321 In addition to these works, some of the cottages’ perimeter wall stumps were replaced, the roof over the veranda was also replaced and both the kitchen and dormitory had their tiles and floorboards temporarily removed to allow the floor in each wing to be levelled.322 The bakehouse chimney was underpinned with three metres of concrete (see Fig. 5); all weakened mortar and bricks were replaced.323 The dormitory chimney’s height was also raised to ensure it drew properly instead of filling the room with smoke. In addition the interiors of both wings were also renovated; a process, which in addition to conservation measures, included partially re-wiring the electricity supply and installing new power points.324 Schulz testifies that historians were unhappy with restoration of the 1870s barn,325 and VCT files contained in the CIA include letters of complaint from the NTV and the Historic Buildings Preservation

320 Ibid. 20–1. 321 Ibid. 322 Ibid. 323 Ibid. 324 Ibid., 21. 325 Ibid., 20. 80

Council in response to noted architectural historian Miles Lewis’s complaints.326 The VCT’s response to this criticism was to paint the barn and the homestead in cream in attempt to give both buildings a similar historical appearance.327 Although heritage guidelines like the Burra Charter advocated thorough research prior to any work being carried out, and the importance of authenticity,328 the VCT believed that undergraduate work and an environmental survey, completed after restoration works on both structures and landscape were begun, meant they had fulfilled such requirements.329

By 1983, the VCT’s management of the site, specifically the lack of available funding saw Schulz advise the VCT that without urgent bridge works the island would have to be closed to public visitation, only three years after its official opening.330 ‘During the tourist season’ wrote Schulz, ‘several children suffered injury...Cattle and sheep have also been injured when crossing the bridge’; he went on to state that the VCT was fortunate that no

326 Lewis was unhappy with the lack of historical research prior to works being carried out or the completion of a master plan, the VCT’s ‘ploughing’ at the edge of what Lewis believed to be the site of the 1801 garden and blockhouse, and the VCT’s preference for undergraduate work. The VCT refuted the claim of ploughing, arguing that ‘some rotary hoeing was done on about 5Ha. in order to eradicate a major regrowth of boxthorn…This hoeing was to a depth of not more than 15cm’. Miles Lewis, letter to Mr Lisle Rudolph, 21 July 1978, 1–3; Lisle Rudolph, letter to Col. I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust, 18 August, 1978, 1–2; Warwick Forge, Acting Administrator, National Trust of Australia (Victoria) to Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust, 22 February 1979; Boyce Pizzey, Director, Historic Buildings Preservation Council, letter to Colonel I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust, 23 April 1979; Lawrie Wilson, Acting Chairman, National Trust of Australia (Victoria) letter to The Hon. W.A. Bothwick, M.P., Minister for Conservation, 14 May 1979, 1–2; John Knott, Chairman, letter to the Hon. W.V. Houghton, M.L.C., Minister for Conservation, July 1979, 1–3; John Knott, Chairman, letter to Mr R. Davidson, O.B.E. Chairman of Council, National Trust of Australia (Victoria), 14 September 1979. CIA, VCT, File 332-2- 9 Churchill Island—Master Plan. 327 C. Schulz, To FOCIS Executive and Staff, Churchill Island: Projects Record from 1976, 20. 328 The Burra Charter argues that authenticity can only be achieved through thorough research. Australia International Council of Monuments and Sites, The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance 1999, with associated Guidelines and Code on the Ethics of Co-existence (Burwood: Australia ICOMOS, 1999, original adoption 1979), 4, 6, 7–9. 329 I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, letter to Mr Lisle Rudolph, Lecturer, Department of Architecture and Building, 16 February 1977; Leslie M. Perrott, letter to Colonel Ian Wilton, Victorian Conservation Trust, 10 May 1976; Lisle Rudolph, letter to Col. I.J. Wilton, Executive Director, Victorian Conservation Trust, 18 August, 1978, 1; John Knott, Chairman [VCT], letter to the Hon. W.V. Houghton, M.L.C., Minister for Conservation, July 1979, 2; Carroll, memo to I.W. ‘Churchill Island’, 2 June 1980. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-9 Churchill Island—Master Plan. Mary Ryllis Clark’s work on the NTS documents similar avoidances of professional expertise as well as strong ideas about class and service in an earlier era. Clarke, In Trust, 39, 53, 55. 330 In a desperate attempt to keep the island open to visitors, staff had affixed sheep wire mesh to the sides of the bridge, the deck of which was ‘90% rotten’ and unsafe for all users. Schulz, Manager’s Report prepared for the Minister of Conservation, 8, 9. Carroll Schulz, private collection. 81 claims for compensation were made.331 Also of concern to Schulz was the local Country Fire Authority’s inability to provide fire protection, since their tankers could not cross the derelict structure, a very concerning issue in the incredibly dry summer of that year.332 While the VCT could and had ‘made do’ in the making an 1801 pre-European conservation landscape, the pioneer landscape with the restoration of 1860s cottages, and ignored the restoration of the later nineteenth century house, which continued to serve as a ‘stop-gap’ shop, film room and display area,333 it could not do so with the bridge. The VCT’s charter had provided it with very real powers, which it used to its advantage in its pursuit of Churchill Island, but its increasing inability to maintain the property it had successfully lobbied to have opened to a visiting public was reaching serious proportions. By 1982 Schulz was recommending to the VCT that they give up the island, and on his advice it passed into the care of the VNPS later that year.

Change and Uncertainty

During the two years the VNPS had the management of Churchill Island (1982–1984) Schulz drew frequently on the resources of his regional office at Foster, in southern Gippsland, and also made great use of family connections at Wilson’s Promontory National Park to obtain access to heavy equipment like slashers that had been well beyond the VCT’s limited means. Ordinary maintenance tasks like slashing, mowing, painting and simple repairs became routine and straightforward.334 The desperately needed bridge repairs were undertaken, funded by the Victorian Parliament, rather than by the VNPS, and were carried out by Ports and Harbours.335 This respite from funding difficulties, however, proved to be short-lived and only two years later the island was transferred once more, this time into the newly created

331 Ibid. 332 Ibid. Victoria experienced its direst year on record to that date between April 1982 and January, 1983. S. Miller, W. Carter, W.G. Stephens, Report of the Bushfire Review Committee: on bush fire disaster preparedness and response in Victoria, Australia, following the Ash Wednesday fires 16 February 1983 (Melbourne: Government Printer, 1984), 16–19. 333 Schulz, Manager’s Report prepared for the Minister of Conservation, 11. Carroll Schulz, private collection. 334 Interview with Carroll and Amy Schulz, Coronet Bay, 10 December 2007. 335 Schulz’s Project Records suggest that this re-build of the bridge occurred in 1982, but Schulz’s Managers Report, completed the following year noted that work had yet to be carried out, suggesting that the bridge re- build occurred sometime between 1983–4. Schulz, Churchill Island: Projects Record from 1976, 28–9; Schulz, Manager’s Report prepared for the Minister of Conservation, 8–9. Carroll Schulz, private collection. 82

Department of Conservation Forests and Lands (hereafter DCFL).336 The transfer to DCFL resulted in a greatly expanded role and portfolio for Schulz, who in addition to caring for Churchill Island, became responsible for public land management on neighbouring Phillip Island. During this time his wife Amy Schulz became a vital link in animal welfare for both islands, and the main house on Churchill Island was virtually given over to office space for Shultz and his small team, while the Schulz’s home on the island served as a stop gap animal refuge. Money, time and resources were now being spread over a much larger space, and Churchill Island’s upkeep became more difficult again as a result.337 Major works carried out on Churchill Island during this period were resultantly few, but included the creation of a garden for the disabled, which opened in 1987,338 and the relocation the sundial installed by mid-twentieth century owner Margaret Campbell to a less shady position in 1992.339 Successive departmental changes in 1990 and 1992 did little to improve the funding for Churchill Island.340 In 1993 Churchill Island acquired its next manager, Scott Campbell, who replaced Carroll (and Amy) Schulz as Ranger in Charge. The following year the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (hereafter DCNR), Churchill Island’s management at this time, demolished Churchill Island’s northern stockyards because it lacked the funds to repair its rotting timbers, which were considered to be a safety hazard.341 During this time FOCIS provided much needed labour and materials necessary to keep Churchill Island open

336 It had previously formed part of the Ministry for Conservation. A.M. Opie, P.K. Gullen, S.C. van Berkel & H. van Rees, Sites of Botanical Significance in the Western Port Region Report, prepared for National Herbarium, Victoria, 1984, p. 2. 337 ‘Our territory was expanded into Phillip Island Reserves in 1985 by D.C.E. [sic] until 1993. We worked on both islands with responsibility for a 2nd work centre @ Conservation Hill...Diminishing budgets (throughout Victoria) brought neglect to both C.I. and P.I.!!’ Carroll Schulz, Interview with Rebecca: Questions, response to interview questionnaire, 2007, 2. Schulz, perhaps not surprisingly considering the number of name changes the Department had, referred to it throughout the interview and the interview questionnaire as the DCE or Department of Conservation and the Environment. 338 Schulz, Churchill Island: Projects Record from 1976, 12. Carroll Schulz, private collection 339 This was due to the growth of the homestead garden. Ibid. 340 The Department of Conservation, Forests and Lands was succeeded by the Department of Conservation and the Environment in 1990, which in turn was succeeded by Department of Conservation and Natural Resources in 1992. In 1996, the department was altered once more, and became the Department of Natural Resources and Environment. Further departmental changes (the creation of Department of Sustainability and Environment in 2002, and the inclusion of Water to that department’s responsibilities in 2006) did not affect Churchill Island as severely, due to the creation of PINP in 1996. 341 Ibid., 9; FOCIS, Newsletter, no. 53 (Spring 1994): 6. 83 to a visiting public, as Rangers Scott Campbell and Dave Graham could not complete all the necessary works to keep the island open and running.342

New Directions

PINP, created by the State Government in 1996, amalgamated several existing conservation areas on Phillip and Churchill Islands, including the Penguin Parade, Seal Rocks, Cape Woolamai, the Rhyll Inlet, and the Koala Conservation Reserve and Churchill Island under one system of management.343 An autonomous statutory government authority like the VCT, subject only to the Minister for the Department of Environment and Sustainability, PINP was self-funding and self-directed, its long term strategy governed by a board of management and its day to day running by the Chief Executive Officer and a host of professional staff. For Churchill Island, the creation of PINP proved to be a major turning point in its history as a public site due to PINP’s pursuit of a commercial tourist market and restoration of Churchill Island’s heritage structures and landscapes.344 During its early years, PINP’s first CEO, Ray Leivers’s primary concern appears to have been preserving the integrity of the sites PINP was charged with managing, and providing a framework of core values to which the organisation would henceforth cleave. Leivers commissioned Biosis Research to complete a management plan for the park, which defined the organisation’s primary directives and mission, and also provide a blueprint for the management of the park’s sites. By 1998, PINP had committed to giving ‘priority to conservation values while providing compatible recreation and ecotourism’,345 and its goal became ‘international excellence in eco-tourism’.346 PINP’s description of itself as a ‘nature park’ from this point forward might have meant Churchill Island’s heritage values would be ignored in favour of its natural features, but PINP’s recognition that Churchill Island was ‘almost completely lacking in natural habitat’,347 led to

342 FOCIS’s tasks for 1994–5 comprised: ‘Work projects with unemployed trainees; restoration of Rogers’s Cottage; purchase and establishment of a herd of sheep; restoration of machinery; fund raising and funding submissions; time spent on work projects; holding a joint planning forum with DCNR on future Direction of Churchill Island.’ FOCIS Newsletter, no. 57 (Spring 1995): 1. 343 It also cares for a significant portion of Phillip Island’s coastline. In this respect PINP this bore some resemblance to ideas enshrined in the NITS proposal. 344 Biosis Research in association with R. Crocker and Associates, Phillip Island Nature Park Draft Management Plan October 1988 (Cowes, Phillip Island: Phillip Island Nature Park Board of Management), 1988, 51–2. CIA, PINP. 345 Ibid., 5. The final plan for PINP was completed in 2000. 346 Ibid. 347 Ibid., 51. 84 a greater valuation of its heritage features. In PINP’s eyes, Churchill Island’s strengths were ‘Its peaceful atmosphere, outstanding views, historic buildings and interesting history, walking and picnic facilities and natural values including moonahs, mangroves and birdlife...[and] an “island experience” that is rare in Victoria’.348 Churchill Island was therefore something of an odd fit within the park, but one which under Leivers’s management would be treated in a manner that PINP believed was appropriate and authentic to the site. In this PINP were assisted by Project Manager Sally O’Neil, who was given the task of providing a specific vision for Churchill Island. O’Neil duly drafted a development plan for the island in 1998–9.

Taking advantage of PINP’s tolerance of the site’s peculiarities, and the lack of any one of the island’s features being identified as pivot around which the management of the site should turn, O’Neil decided that Churchill Island would be transformed into a commercial heritage site, if one that continued to provide natural habitat and features for birds, marine life and other animals.349 This site would offer a heritage experience to any visitors who paid for it, and was not aimed specifically at educating a Victorian citizenry about their origins.350 The island’s features were to be designed to engender a welcoming, tranquil, contemplative and nostalgic experience.351 Spaces like the main house’s garden would encourage visitors to ‘sit under a shady tree which is over 100 years old and imagine what life was like back then.’352 O’Neil’s vision for the island thus encompassed something more than imparting reverence of a European foundational history in the manner that the VCT had desired, rather, she wanted the island to provide an immersive experience and connection to a visitor-generated imagined past.

In accordance with the management plan for PINP as a whole, and O’Neil’s Churchill Island Development Plan, PINP invested heavily in Churchill Island. PINP constructed a new bridge capable of carrying large tourist coaches,353 and invested in the island’s historic values by carrying out a series of conservation works. Interestingly, these works centred not on the two ‘pioneer’ cottages, which together with the story of the ‘first’ planting had previously

348 Ibid., 51; Phillip Island Nature Park: Management Plan, December 2000 (Phillip Island: Phillip Island Nature Park, 2000), 38. 349 Sally O’Neil, Churchill Island Development Plan July 2001, completed 1999 (Phillip Island, Phillip Island Nature Park, 2001).1–5. CIA, PINP. 350 Ibid., 8. 351 Ibid. 352 O’Neil, Churchill Island Development Plan July 2001, 8. CIA, PINP. 353 Completed in 1999. 85 been the VCT’s focus, but rather on the main house and its gardens. These would be fully ‘restored’, and a separate visitor centre was built to replace the main house’s use for this purpose.354 PINP also embarked on a renewed programme of native planting and habitat restoration in the area near the cairn, continuing the work attempted by the VCT to ‘restore’ native habitat to the area. Interestingly, this was not presented so much as a pre-European natural landscape, but rather as an Indigenous one in marked contrast to the VCT’s pioneer/conservation landscape.355 In further contrast with the VCT, these works were funded entirely by PINP’s operational revenue, and carried out by hired professionals rather than volunteers, in line with PINP’s organisational outlook and its operation in a more regulated heritage environment.356

O’Neil’s decision to hire professional expertise for Churchill Island’s conservation works had far reaching implications. These professionals adhered to and promoted the guidelines codified through ICOMOS and Burra Charter, and as a result, serious research was conducted prior to restoration works, and all of the works completed were carried out with a view to authenticity. Lewis, who had complained about the treatment of the island’s historic features under the VCT, was hired to investigate the island’s history, although his assessment does not appear to have formed the basis of the site’s heritage interpretation.357 O’Neil also hired heritage consultant Phyllis Murphy to complete an analysis of the island’s heritage features, who advised that all of the modern wall and floor linings should be stripped back to reveal earlier coverings, a process that revealed four wallpapers dating back to the 1870s. On Murphy’s advice, O’Neil contracted a heritage company to complete restoration work on the site. Paperhangings were duly hired, and their assessment concentrated on the physical features of the island and a model for their interpretation. This interpretation concentrated

354 This would also allow PINP a purpose built space where they could operate a gift shop, education services and catering facilities, a space where they would not have to comply with heritage building restrictions, and enable them to present their services in a more attractive fashion (under good lighting and in a space that encouraged visitors to circulate past shop displays etc.). 355 Roy Ellen, ‘Introduction’ in Redefining Nature: Ecology, Culture and Domestication, Roy Ellen and Katsuyoshi Fukui eds (Oxford; Washington, Berg, 1996), 3. 356 Clark, In Trust, 53, 57, 59. 357 Lewis’s work focused on the history of the island and the care of its architectural features more than its interiors. In addition, Lewis’s research refuted previous historical understandings of the island, a politically difficult position for O’Neil, since Lewis’s history contradicted family histories. These findings were not included in PINP’s information boards or brochures to the visiting public, although my discussions with Thompson made it clear that people with family connections with Churchill Island had been made aware of Lewis’s work. Lewis, Homestead Churchill Island Draft, 20. CIA, PINP Homestead Restoration—General Files. 86 less on individual owner details, and more on the types of stories the site best embodied. Paperhangings’s Barbara Wildings ensured that the main house’s refurbishment was based on ‘Material found within the building’, and also literature on the subject of interior design dating from the 1870s.358 Acting on Paperhangings’s assessment that as the main house’s significance lay in its ‘1870s use as a holiday house on a working farm by wealthy businessman and his family’,359 O’Neil decided to refurbish the interior as well as exterior of the main house in the style of the late 1870s, and replace twentieth century raised garden beds to its north with plantings ‘appropriate to the late 1800s’.360

Major works on the main house began in 1999. The house was restumped, its timber cladding was restored, windows repaired or replaced and its exterior completely repainted in colours appropriate to the late nineteenth century from the National Trust Bulletin.361 On professional heritage advice, the window seat installed for the film Summerfield was removed, as was a set of French doors.362 Openings between some rooms were closed to return them to their nineteenth century proportions.363 Three of the four patterns of wallpaper dating back to the 1870s that had been discovered during the heritage assessment were reproduced, and were augmented by wallpapers selected from Paperhangings’s collection of 1870s designs.364 Up to three different designs were papered on the walls and ceilings of each room to create an accurate depiction of 1870s interior decoration. Without doubt, the use of these wallpapers illustrated a type of decorating sense no longer in use, and thus effectively invoked an era long past, while the sumptuous and often busy patterns visually embodied both the wealth and taste that the restoration of the main house was designed to convey. PINP’s work on the 1870s gardens used consultants Dyke and Spencer’s 1982 assessment as their template, and this resulted in a decision to re-create a period garden, rather than attempt

358 Barbara Wilding, Paperhangings, fax to Sally O’Neil, Recommendations for completion of Work on Amess House, 27 August 1999, 1. CIA, PINP Homestead Restoration—Paperhangings Files. 359 Ibid. 360 Biosis Research, Draft Management Plan October 1988, 52. CIA, PINP. 361 Lewis, Homestead Churchill Island Draft, 20, CIA, PINP Homestead Restoration—General Files; Phillip Island Nature Park, Annual Report, 1998/1999, 6. 362 Lewis, Homestead Churchill Island Draft (1999), 18. CIA, PINP Homestead Restoration—General Files; Barbara Wilding, Paperhangings, fax to Sally O’Neil, Recommendations for completion of Work on Amess House, 27 August 1999, 1. CIA, PINP Homestead Restoration—Paperhangings Files. 363 Ibid. 364 Barbara Wilding, Paperhangings, fax to Sally O’Neil, Recommendations for completion of Work on Amess House, 27 August 1999, 2. CIA, PINP Homestead Restoration—Paperhangings Files. 87 to restore or simply conserve what remained.365 This decision was based on the fact that the garden’s Norfolk Pine had grown substantially over the last one hundred and thirty odd years since it had been planted and its growth had permanently altered the form of the garden from an open exotic garden into an old growth shade garden.366 Since the tree was heritage listed, and thus formed an important aspect of Churchill Island’s claims to historical importance, it could not be cut down, removed, or otherwise altered to recreate the sapling and sun-loving garden of the 1870–80s era.367 Those elements dating from the late nineteenth century, including The Norfolk Pine, Camellias, and to a lesser extent the cannon,368 were duly incorporated into the new garden, and resultant 1870s landscape was created by using period exotics that would suit the shade garden. (Fig. 6)

Fig. 6 The shady main house garden and its cannon 2008. Author’s own.

365 The term ‘re-creation’ is used here as defined by Dyke and Spencer to mean ‘the process of establishing a garden de novo with the plants and style characteristic of a particular historical period. This is not a form of conservation.’ Dyke and Spencer, Churchill Island: An Historic Garden Conservation Study, 6. Department of Primary Industries Library. Underlining in original. 366 Ibid., 19. 367 Ibid., 29. 368 The cannon functioned as Churchill Island’s logo during PINP’s early management of the site. ‘The Working Horse and Pioneer Festival on Churchill Island’, Advertiser, 11 April 2001, 17. 88

PINP’s decision to restore, or in some cases recreate the historical era of the 1870s and early 1880s at Churchill Island did not obscure the ‘pioneer’ landscape created by the VCT, but it did recast it. In simple terms, the space taken up by the two cottages was less than half the space taken up by the main house alone, and when the main house garden is considered in tandem with the main house it is fair to state that the period of 1870–80 occupies far more space, and thus speaks louder, than that of the ‘pioneer’ era or early 1800s. This was further compounded by the use of one of the cottages as part of the 1870’s landscape, which was furnished as servants’ quarters, much as they were presumed to have been used during the 1870s. PINP’s early management’s preference in presenting holiday house on a working farm narrative, rather than the VCT’s hardworking pioneers, daring explorers and their impact on a presumed natural environment was clear. While changing societal attitudes in Australia towards early colonial history in the mid to late 1990s, including the acrimonious ‘History Wars’ might have been one possible reason for PINP’s preference for this narrative,369 the absence of any such concerns within Churchill Island’s archival records suggests that other reasons were more important, as indeed PINP’s clear highlighting and concern for the incorporation of Indigenous history in Churchill Island’s landscape suggests.370 Moreover, the narrative of an historic first and its associations with settlement were still present at the site of the cairn commemorating Grant’s gardening efforts in 1801, even if it was no longer apparent in the heritage precinct; although the spatial distancing between these two stories did reduce the power of what Carter describes as a cause and effect narrative.371 Evidence suggests that the reason why this occurred was PINP’s pursuit of a commercial tourist demographic.

PINP’s Penguin Parade, which continues to attract large numbers of international as well as domestic tourists, had paid for all of the works completed on Churchill Island, and for almost all of its maintenance, its staffing and its promotion.372 This was problematic, since the Penguin Parade also paid for the most of the upkeep, staffing and promotion of the rest of PINP’s sites. With only three sites charging an entry fee, it was prudent for the self-funding

369 Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 3. W.S. Logan, ‘Reshaping the “Sunburnt Country”: Heritage and Cultural Politics in Contemporary Australia’ in Geographies of Australian Heritages, 207. 370 CIA, PINP; Conversation with Sally O’Neil. 371 ‘[T]he result of cause and effect narrative history is to give the impression that events unfold according to a logic of their own’. Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, xvii. 372 The Penguin Parade remains Victoria’s most visited attraction outside of Melbourne’s CBD. Unaudited visitation numbers for PINP land in total in the 2012–13 year were 1,171,000. Mathew Jackson, PINP CEO’s Report to FOCIS, Field Notes, FOCIS Annual General Meeting 11 August 2013. 89

PINP to try to increase Churchill Island’s revenue, ideally to the point where it would be self- sustaining, leaving the Penguin Parade with a much reduced financial burden.373 The task was a considerable one, particularly since Churchill Island’s visitor numbers were so small at the time PINP first took over its management (Table 2).374 Attracting only 12,397 visitors in 1997, it would have been clear that charging higher entry prices would have made little difference to Churchill Island’s bottom line: what it needed more visitors. While visitor numbers had increased by an impressive 43% between 1996 and 1999 (Table 2) under PINP’s management, prior to heritage works being carried out, visitor numbers were still well below what PINP need to make the site self-sustaining. If PINP had expected Churchill Island’s heritage restoration to provide the much needed influx, however, they were disappointed: Churchill Island’s visitor numbers continued to increase slowly, not dramatically, a situation that greatly troubled PINP’s second CEO, Mark Manteit.

Table 2 Visitation by Financial Year

Year of Visitation 1996/7 1997/8 1998/9

Penguin Parade 528,300 494,212 493,915

Koala 99,671 95,973 104,212 Conservation Centre

Churchill Island 12,397 17,827 25,573

The above is from Phillip Island Nature Park, Annual Report 1998/1999 Phillip Island, Phillip Island Nature Park, 1999, 30.

In Pursuit of Commercial Viability

Incoming CEO Manteit’s background in business and marketing made him the perfect choice for an organisation looking to dramatically increase its revenue. Under Leivers’s

373 PINP similarly desired to make the Koala Centre, the third site charging an entry fee, self-sustaining in revenue terms also. 374 Phillip Island Nature Park, Annual Report 1998/1999, Phillip Island, Phillip Island Nature Park, 1999, 30. 90 management, the Penguin Parade had continued to attract international visitors, but other sites within PINP portfolio had focused more on a domestic market.375 In contrast, Manteit aggressively pursued an international demographic for all sites charging an entry fee. In hindsight, it seems clear that Manteit was the first person in a position of power to see PINP as a single entity, rather than as an umbrella organisation including multiple brands. Poor site performance individually was not simply a matter for the site, but a concern to the financial security of the whole of the organisation. Manteit’s response to both the Koala Centre, and particularly Churchill Island’s continued low visitation numbers correspondingly focused on the interdependence of these sites, and on their marketing, rather than the physical aspects of the sites.376 Under Manteit’s management PINP began marketing the 3 Parks Pass, which aimed to replace the habit of visiting only a single attraction with the opportunity of visiting all three for a discounted price, trading on the popularity of the Penguin Parade. As the pass was more expensive than a simple ticket to visit the Penguin Parade, those visitors to PINP who bought the pass thus spent a greater amount of money within PINP’s sites than had previously been the case.377 On top of this, the fact that they had entry to three sites necessarily meant that they would spend more time at the sites, further increasing revenue opportunities, as my conversations and meetings with Manteit during the project continually highlighted.378 Lastly, and from Manteit’s perspective, most enticingly, the 3 Parks Pass offered PINP a new product to tempt bus lines catering to international tourists: the pass was used as a baseline for discussions, and tailored the increased expectations of the bus companies’ clients.379 Other strategies included the hosting of special events,380 the

375 PINP Board member and President of FOCIS Stella Axarlis recently described PINP’s operation during these early years as akin to that of a charitable organisation. ‘We needed Mark.’ Stella Axarlis, Opening comments, Field Notes, FOCIS AGM 11 August 2013. 376 In Manteit’s words ‘putting additional attractions on the site won’t increase its revenue’, instead PINP needed to do a better job of attracting visitors to the facilities it already had in place. Email correspondence, Mark Manteit to Rebecca Sanders, 6 October 2009. 377A 3 Parks Pass for an adult is currently $41.60, where as a single adult entry to Churchill Island is only $12.25. Phillip Island Nature Parks, ‘3 Parks Pass’ and ‘Churchill Island Heritage Farm’, Buy Tickets available at https://www.penguins.org.au/buy-tickets/category/id/36 and https://www.penguins.org.au/buy- tickets/category/id/5, accessed 14 March, 2015. 378 Meeting with PINP and FOCIS, Field Notes, 20 March 2007; Email correspondence, Mark Manteit to Rebecca Sanders, 6 October 2009. 379 During the course of my PhD, PINP successfully wooed Grey Line Buses with this kind of private arrangement. Significant numbers came from Asian backgrounds, with Chinese visitors making up the largest segment of this market. Of the 1,171,000 visitors to PINP in the 2012–13 year, 140,000 were Chinese. PINP also made a deal with Amway. In 2013, when Amway India visited PINP, just over 4000 visitors cycled through PINP 3 Parks Pass sites over the course of a single day, and PINP contracted local caterer Anne Jeffery to create what PINP believe is the largest walking buffet ever staged in Victoria, for 4010 people. Mathew Jackson, PINP CEO’s report, FOCIS AGM, Field Notes, 10 August, 2013. 91 introduction of new outbuildings on Churchill Island where visitors could interact with a variety of farm animals and more recently, a wallaby enclosure, which Manteit argued were necessary to placate the demands of international visitors and the bus lines who courted their business.381 As a result of these strategies visitation to Churchill Island increased by an extraordinary degree over the course of my PhD. In 2012, PINP recorded a total of 134,996 visitors to Churchill Island, an increase of about 83,000 from 2007.382 Indeed, visitation to the site has increased to such an extent that current PINP CEO Mathew Jackson commissioned Tract Consulting to complete an independent analysis of the site. Tract Consulting have since provided PINP with a new ten year management strategy in the form of a Key Area Plan that will help PINP cope with the novel problem of having too many visitors for the site to cope with in its current incarnation with regards to staffing, facilities and resources.383 More recently this has been followed up with Lovell Chen consultants’ completion of a Conservation Management Plan to provide PINP with a blueprint for the management of the site’s European heritage features.384

Heritage Landscapes as Cultural Texts: Identifying Common Themes

This chapter has demonstrated how understandings and valuations of Churchill Island’s heritage have changed over the course of the twentieth century, the reasons why this has

380 The Chill Island Music festival was held annually on Churchill Island from 2007-2010 and a Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concert was held on 2 February 2013. In addition to these large events, PINP continues the tradition started under the VCT of serving as a wedding venue, an option that remains popular due to the island’s picturesque qualities and spectacular views of Western Port. ‘Chill Island’, Faster Louder, available at http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/allabout/event/9765/Chill-Island, accessed 14 February 2015; Friends of Churchill Island Society, FOCIS Newsletter, 117 (Spring 2012), 1; Phillip Island Nature Parks, ‘Churchill Island Heritage Farm and Functions’, available at http://www.penguins.org.au/assets/Attractions/Churchill- Island/PDF/Churchill-Island-Weddings-Updated-June-11-2013.pdf, accessed 14 February 2015. 381 Including a horse works, stables, working dog displays and a petting zoo, although the petting aspect has been discontinued during the course of my PhD. Curator and FOCIS member Christine Grayden noted that ‘The introduction of the wallabies was very controversial, especially with FOCIS…At the time Mark [Manteit] claimed the tour operators told him that they would not go to CI if there were no wallabies.’ Grayden, Comments by Christine Grayden on Rebecca’s CI Thesis, 7. 382 In May 2007 Manteit had reported that visitation for Churchill Island at that time was 40–42,000, and that visitation was anticipated to be around 52–53,000 for the year 2007. Mark Manteit, PINP CEO’s report, FOCIS meeting, Field Notes, 26 May 2007; Mathew Jackson, PINP CEO’s report, FOCIS AGM, Field Notes, 10 August, 2013. 383 Email Communication between Christine Grayden, Matthew Jackson, Damien Predergast and Rebecca Sanders, 26 June, 12 July, 15 July and 16 July 2014. 384 Precolonial features or heritage is required to be managed under separate agreements. Meeting regarding Conservation Management Plan with PINP and Lovell Chen, Penguin Parade, Field Notes, 2 December, 2014. 92 occurred, and how these changing evaluations, and their subsequent alterations to Churchill Island, resulted in a layered landscape that combined elements of successive understandings and their physical expression. While it might be tempting, therefore, to understand Churchill Island as a ‘palimpsest of the elements from the past and the present’ in the manner of Sauer or Hoskins,385 close examination of sources relating to Churchill Island’s history as a heritage site suggests that this reading of Churchill Island’s landscape is overly simplistic. The past argues Lowenthal, attracts us because it is old,386 and during the VCT’s management, visitor expectations about the nature of Churchill Island as a heritage site resulted in the removal of features like the clothesline, because they spoke of a late twentieth century residential existence not in line with visitor expectations. Moreover, as the first section of this chapter demonstrated, the VCT’s understanding and valuation of Churchill Island stemmed from public conceptions of Churchill Island formed during the early twentieth century. More recently, PINP has installed features like the petting zoo and wallaby enclosure within the heritage precinct, not because such features would have existed during Churchill Island’s history prior to its transformation in to a public space in 1976, but because international tourists, especially those from populous countries in Asia, desired opportunities to interact with farm animals and native wildlife, if in a sanitised fashion.387 These statements are not designed to judge either the VCT or PINP’s management of Churchill Island, but rather to direct attention towards the fact that Churchill Island’s heritage landscapes have been ‘co- constructed in the present by the simultaneous participation of both narrative agents [heritage managements] and active readers [visitors]’ as heritage writers like Chronis have argued.388 Thus, while the present-day landscape of Churchill Island can provide hints about Churchill Island’s past, which as influential cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan argues, is experienced as ‘a dialogue between the physical environment and human perception’,389 the co-constructed nature of its historical heritage landscapes have also obscured and conjured up other elements on the basis of their perceived desirability. Churchill Island’s heritage landscapes therefore were/are not just physical manifestations, but cultural products: temporal texts which though

385 Aplin, ‘World Heritage Cultural Landscapes’: 430. 386 Lowenthal argues that the past attracts us because it is old. Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, 53. 387 More recently this has extended to include displays of whip cracking. During cold weather a drizabone is worn, but according to PINP curator, Grayden, the costume is not currently considered an integral part of the display, although my own view is that it added a decided note of Australiana. Grayden, Comments by Christine Grayden on Rebecca’s CI Thesis, 7. 388 Chronis, ‘Constructing Heritage at the Gettysburg Storyscape’: 389. 389 Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing, ‘Anglo-Saxon Horizons: Places of the Mind in the Northumbrian Landscape’ in A Place to Believe In: Locating Medieval Landscapes, Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing, eds (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University, 2006), 1. 93 no longer physically preserved can still be viewed and understood through medium of historical sources. I have read these historical (as opposed to historic) landscapes to discern the ways in which the general public, visitors and managers have understood and valued Churchill Island’s history in the twentieth century.

For the purposes of this thesis, Churchill Island’s historical landscapes identify a number of common themes and understandings about Churchill Island’s past held by an identified general public, and this has allowed this thesis to address their concerns as well as those of research partner PINP and the Churchill Island Community, in addition to responding to Churchill Island’s official heritage inscription by HCV as well as the NTV. It has also strengthened the importance of some of the items on the list jointly produced by SHAPS, PINP, FOCIS and I, which while useful in defining what I should research, was less helpful in dictating how I should communicate my findings given the fact that the product PINP had commissioned was a PhD thesis rather than a report.

This chapter has identified a long and sustained concern with Churchill Island’s early colonial history, but examination of public understandings that preceded the VCT’s interest in the site suggests that their explicit connection between the planting of a garden in 1801 and the later settlement of Victoria was not always clearly enunciated. Rather, interest in this aspect of Churchill Island’s history can be described using Lowenthal’s definition of the ‘primordial’, which is concerned with beginnings; ‘precedence’, which demonstrates a concern with antecedence; and less commonly with ‘remoteness’, or age.390 Under the VCT, however, these multiple understandings were replaced with a single interpretation, the idea that Grant’s 1801 garden had ‘strong connections’ with Victoria’s foundation. The longevity of the VCT’s interpretation, despite PINP’s overshadowing of it in Churchill Island’s present day heritage landscape, is worth noting. In the 1980s, historian Valda Cole argued that those who had planted the garden had earned the ‘distinction of cultivating and planting the first land in the future Garden State.’391 Undated photographs housed in the Churchill Island Archives document a trip to wheat farms in the Victoria’s Wimmera sometime during the late 1980s or early 1990s as well as subsequent wheat plantings and horse drawn harvesting on

390 Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, 53–55. 391 For Cole, as for the Farmers Union, Grant’s sowing of wheat was particularly notable. Cole, Western Port Chronology, 11. 94

Churchill Island.392 The now defunct ‘Working Horse Festival’ also included wheat harvesting.393 More recently in 2012, a travel article in The Age stated that Churchill Island was Victoria’s first farm.394 This interpretation, which presumably influenced the HCV’s official heritage inscription of Churchill Island, is concerned with what Lowenthal calls the ‘cult of origins’, and what Carter refers to as the ‘cult of the first comers’. The cult of the first is based on the idea that firsts are important in their own right,395 and that it is possible ‘to seek complete explanations in beginnings’.396 One of the tasks of this thesis, therefore, has been to investigate the usefulness of this ‘first’ in explaining Churchill Island’s history, its presumed connections with the settlement of Victoria more broadly, and Churchill Island more specifically. This is particularly important because this understanding of Churchill Island has continued into the present day, despite its overshadowing by PINP’s current interpretation of the site as a heritage farm.

The second major interest this chapter identified in Churchill Island’s historical landscapes was a concern with the site’s ability to represent a pioneer story, or early settlement. Visitors’ complaints about the clothesline that originally blocked their view of the pioneer cottages during the VCT’s management suggest that this aspect was valued by Churchill Island’s general public, as did earlier newspaper articles.397 In its current incarnation as a heritage farm, PINP has interpreted this early settlement narrative to provide support for their contention that Churchill Island has been farmed since the 1850s. International visitors’ desire for and approval of the features PINP has imported to impart this interpretation—the working horses, new outbuildings and farmyard animals—has mirrored approval noted in my conversations in the Churchill Island Community. This has suggested a second major item on which this thesis should focus its investigation of Churchill Island’s

392 The clothing worn in the photographs suggest they were probably taken during the later 1980s or early 1990s, Photo Album number 3, CIA. 393 FOCIS meetings, Field Notes, 2007–2008 and 2014 FOCIS Annual General Meeting, which aired a video about the working horse performance on Churchill Island. 394 McLennan, Le. ‘Victoria’s Secret: an island of pleasure’, The Age August 27, 2012 available at http://www.theage.com.au/travel/victorias-secret-an-island-of-pleasure-20120614- 20cna.html#ixzz2BVx7FUwH. This interpretation of the island’s history perhaps drew this inference on the basis of PINP’s current presentation of the island as a heritage farm. A series of discussions over the past few years between myself and current farm manager Trevor Haywood make it unlikely that this inference was put forward by Hayward, although his predecessor Gordon Brown did make this connection. Field Notes, Churchill Island, Friday, 20 June, 2008. 395 Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, 55; Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, xviii. 396 Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country, 55. 397 ‘Council Wants to Buy Churchill Island’, South Gippsland Sentinel-Times, 5 April, 1973, photocopy in CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 95 past is its history as a settlement site, and its connections with farming. Due to the popularity of recent connections made between farming and Churchill Island’s history of settlement, it has also been appropriate to examine the extent to which Churchill Island was settled through the practice of farming.

The third issue this chapter identified was the concept of authenticity and the value of serious research in helping managements and their publics co-construct a version of the past that is based on factual information. Authenticity is a concept much championed by ICAMOS and heritage professionals,398 but research conducted for this chapter supports arguments made by heritage scholars that heritage sites’ relationship with the past is largely about the needs of the present. The VCT was not generally concerned with authenticity with regard to Churchill Island’s built features, and although it did commission a report into the provenance of the island’s cannon, these findings were later ignored.399 PINP’s Project Officer O’Neil also commissioned investigations, but again, the findings of these, particularly Lewis’s analysis Homestead, Churchill Island, were not always utilised either.400 Since this thesis’s interpretation of the concept of shared authority has led me to argue that expertise is most useful when it provides stakeholders with the information they need to make informed decisions, this thesis will respond to the issue of historical accuracy or authenticity by providing public stakeholders with a product that is based not only on factual evidence but also deep analysis. The result is that in the following chapters this thesis will refute some of Churchill Island’s more popular interpretations, and certainly many of its official ones. My conduct of the Churchill Island Project, and in particular my continued dialogue with public stakeholders, however, will hopefully ensure that the findings contained in the following chapters and conclusion are acceptable to its public stakeholders, as well as contributing to more academic conversations about space, landscape, settler colonialism and the usefulness of microstoria when dealing with a subject like Churchill Island.

398 David Lowenthal, ‘Heritage Stewardship and the Amateur Tradition’ APT Bulletin 30, no. 2/3 (1999): 7. 399 The dates given in correspondence are dated 1982. CIA, VCT The Canon, parts 1–3. 400 Specifically Lewis’s claim that the Pickersgills were not settlers in their own right, but were probably John Rogers’s servants. Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft, 4–8. CIA, PINP. 96

Chapter Four: Making and Forgetting Churchill Island

During one of my many visits to Churchill Island, former farm manager Gordon Brown explained to a group of visiting school students that the planting of wheat in 1801 and its subsequent harvesting the following year meant that Europeans knew that they would be able to grow things in Victoria and that this had eventually led to the creation of the wheat industry in Victoria.401 It reminded me of my first visit to Churchill Island and Jill and Fred Allen’s questions about whether or not I knew about palaeobotany (I had never heard of it), and how this might be useful in helping them to determine the location of Victoria’s first European garden. I thought also of my second visit and my supervisor’s whispered aside as we were led around the property that it was interesting to note the manner in which ‘historical firsts’ seemed to rivet peoples’ attention; the implied but unsaid conclusion being that one should ask why.

Fig. 7 Churchill Island from Fisher’s Wetland on neighbouring Phillip Island. Author’s own, 5 June, 2008.

401 Field Notes, Churchill Island, Friday, 20 June, 2008. 97

Based on discussions with public stakeholders, analysis of previous written histories, Churchill Island’s heritage inscriptions and my reading of Churchill Island’s historical landscapes (as a means of consulting a broader public), this chapter will interrogate the importance of explorers’ activities on Churchill Island, and the manner in which they transformed it from an Indigenous Boon Wurrung space into a colonial space, and what this meant. It will examine how and why European explorers made a new colonial space at Churchill Island, and the extent to which this could be considered to be a direct precursor to the later settlement Churchill Island specifically, and Victoria more generally. In particular it will contextualise the cultivation of plants on Churchill Island against a broader historical backdrop of exploration and settler colonisation, its associated activities and their meanings. In doing so, I argue that while making colonial space and landscape more generally served as a symbolic prefiguring in the making of a permanent settlement spaces, they did not predetermine it. This argument is based on the close examination of two factors that have been ignored by the site’s previous historians, and those who developed its descriptions as a heritage site of state significance. The first is the specific understandings and practices of European explorers making colonial space in the period between the settlement of Sydney and Hobart Town. The second is the subsequent history of Churchill Island, for which there is no documented settling presence for the following fifty years.

As I demonstrated in previous chapter, the VCT’s belief that Churchill Island was worthy of purchase by the state because of its magnificent birdlife and its presumed historical connections with the settlement of Victoria was built on long held understandings of the site by the general public, but as colonial scholars like Carter have argued, we should investigate what ‘discovery’ actually meant.402 As I will show in this chapter not only do such long-held opinions not always hold up to closer inspection, they sometimes obscure a richer historical understanding. This chapter begins with a description of the Boon Wurrung space that existed prior to and during the early contact period in response to the list generated in conjunction with the public stakeholders of the Churchill Island Project and scholarly concerns with colonial, settler colonial and

402 Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, xviii. In Australia, monuments to explorers celebrate all kinds of specific acts, but do not necessarily interrogate or seek to understand their importance or place them within a broader historical context. In the case of Churchill Island, it is ‘the first cultivation of wheat in Victoria’ that is celebrated in this form. Inscription on Churchill Island Cairn. Photograph taken 20 June 2008. 98 postcolonial situations. It then introduces the first of the three aspects of Lefebvre’s triad, spatial practice, which I unpack using postcolonial scholarship to argue that spatial practice is concerned not only with physical performance, but cognitive acts also. Armed with this explanation, I then illustrate how Bass’s whaleboat journey, the traditional beginning of Churchill Island’s story in all but the most recent accounts of its history, did not contribute to the making of Churchill Island as a colonial space, because Bass never categorised Churchill Island as a separate space in its own right. I then demonstrate how his successors, Lieutenant James Grant, Ensign Barrallier and the largely convict crew of the Lady Nelson, successfully categorised, named and physically altered Churchill Island’s landscape to make a new colonial space. The short term success of these actions, and the new colonial space they made, are then contextualised within a broader history of exploration and making space on and around Churchill Island to answer Carter and other postcolonial scholars’ arguments that we should interrogate the importance of actions like those of Grant and his crew in making a permanent settler colonial space.

A Boon Wurrung Space

Prior to settlement, the local Indigenous people, the Boon Wurrung, could claim the country along what we now call the Mornington Peninsula and all around Western Port. They were often seen, though far less often encountered, by the Europeans who visited and eventually claimed possession of their lands. The first European explorer in the area, George Bass, himself saw only four,403 and the harbour’s next official European visitor, Lieutenant James Grant, did not see them at all, although he and his men found plenty of material evidence they recognised as a sign of their inhabitancy: marks of fires, gunnies, middens, dingo tracks and an abandoned canoe.404 They also observed that the local wildlife were shy because ‘they were often pursued by natives’.405 The

403 Cole, Mr Bass’s Western Port, 41. 404 James Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, Performed in His Majesty’s Vessel the Lady Nelson, of Sixty Tons Burthen, with Sliding Keels, in the Years 1800, 1801, and 1802 to New South Wales, (London: T. Egerton, Military Library, Whitehall, 1803), 132, 139, 141. 405 Ibid., 126. On the Lady Nelson’s next visit in 1802 Acting Lieutenant Murray’s 1st Mate, Bowen, met with a party of Boon Wurrung on Sunday 3 January 1802. Entry for Monday 4 January 1802, John Murray, The Log of the Lady Nelson on a Voyage of Discovery to Bass Strait. Acting Lieutenant John Murray 1801–1802. Typescript Copy of Log of the Lady Nelson, Typescript by Andrew C.F. David from 99

Boon Wurrung were semi-nomadic, travelling in groups to different places around their country, where they would sometimes stay until they had temporarily exhausted most of the locale’s resources before moving onto the next site, and other times merely rest a night or two before continuing their journey to some farther destination.406 Assistant Protector William Thomas noted whilst travelling with a large group in 1840 that when confronted by a shortage of food at Tuerong they held a council, ‘which ended in an understanding to separate, 44 were to remain & divide themselves into 6 parties traversing the Country from Mount Martha to Cape Schank—57 were in one body to Cross the Country to Western Port’.407 Thomas’s notes and letters provide a picture of a highly organised society that was careful not to overtax the natural resources on which they depended, and who utilised a system of arbitration and discussion to solve problems like food scarcity. Earlier encounters with the Boon Wurrung, whether in person, or mediated from afar through material culture or land management practices, illustrate how widely their presence extended throughout Western Port, and how carefully they shaped and maintained the landscape that was their home. Although Grant did not recognise the regulated areas of luxuriant pasture encountered throughout his explorations of Western Port’s mainland and Phillip Island as the product of firestick land management,408 his successor, Acting Lieutenant James Murray recorded frequent sightings of small fires whilst in Western Port during the summer of 1801–2, recognising them as the work of Indigenous people even though he did not understand their purpose.409 Twenty-five years later French explorer Jules S-C Durmont D’Urville suggested that the areas of long grass he encountered had probably not occurred naturally, and implied that they were likely to be the work of the local Indigenous people, although he did not provide any proposal as to how this had been achieved.410

original at Hydrographic Department, Ministry of Defence, Taunton, Somerset (Miscellaneous Papers Vol. 69-Ba1), 46–50. NLA Australian Manuscripts Collection MS 8178. 406 Wm Thomas to G.A. Robinson, 27 February 1840. PROV VPRS11 Protector of Aborigines, Reports and Returns Item 300, in Cole, Western Port, 95. 407 Ibid. 408 Grant records that at the area at the terminus of the Rhyll Inlet was ‘covered with good tender grass, and afforded by their agreeable verdure great pleasure to the sight’ and that the grass ‘which grew every- where luxuriantly, and seemed like other salt marshes well adapted to the purpose of fattening cattle.’ Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 127–8, 135. 409 John Murray, Entry for Sunday 13 December 1801, The Log of the Lady Nelson, 33. 410 Jules S-C Durmont D’Urville, An Account in Two Volumes of Two Voyages to the South Seas by Captain (later Rear-Admiral) Jules S-C Durmont D’Urville of the French Navy to Australia, New Zealand, Oceania 1826–1829 in the corvette Astrolabe and to the Straits of Magellan, Chile, Oceania, South East Asia, Antarctica, New Zealand and Torres Strait 1837–1840 in the corvettes Astrolabe and 100

All three explorers provide pieces of evidence that suggest that the Boon Wurrung had been carefully shaping their landscape to create areas of good pasture where they could hunt kangaroos long before Europeans entered Western Port, and that they continued this practice even as Europeans began claiming their space. Thus, even as colonial explorers began to define and shape the land they encountered at Western Port, the Boon Wurrung continued to hold with their own definitions and practices, so that two understandings and usages of the space now called Western Port existed concurrently.

The Boon Wurrung had shaped, and been shaped by their country for generations. They had created their own definitions of space and they had created their own places, some of which were represented on two maps made by the Assistant Protector Thomas in 1840 and 1841 respectively.411 These maps, unfortunately, do not show any of the smaller islands of Western Port and thus do not display Churchill Island or an English translation of its Boon Wurrung name.412 Whether or not the Boon Wurrung had named Churchill Island and understood it as a space separate from that of the water surrounding it, or from the island they called Corring is uncertain, but the canoe Bowen, 2nd mate to the Lady Nelson, found in 1801 suggests that they would have easily been able to visit it, as the probable shell middens at Bass Rock, on the north eastern side of Churchill Island attest.413 In many ways, Churchill Island would have been understood as part of a bigger space—the space of the Boon Wurrung, a land which they understood as being something they belonged to, rather than it belonging to them. With the arrival of European explorers, this understanding was challenged by foreign conceptions of space and as a result a new type of space making and landscape shaping started in Western Port, and by extension, on the place we now know as Churchill Island. It was not something imported wholesale, for it used local features and resources as material for new ways of understanding and new practices. Indeed, as the

Zélée. Volume I: Astrolabe 1826–1829, translated and edited by Helen Roseman (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1987), 59. 411 Interestingly these two maps give different Boon Wurrung names for French Island, which is translated as Bel-lar-mar-in in 1840 and Jouap in 1841. The 1840 version also gives Warn-mor-in as the indigenous name for Western Port, but provides no name for the bay in 1841. Phillip Island is translated as Corring in both versions. William Thomas Sketch of Western Port, 1840 in Cole, Western Port Chronology, 92–3; Assistant Protector William Thomas’s map of the Western Port Protectorate District (Port Phillip and Western Port Bays), 1841. PROV, VPRS 6760/P0, unit 1 accessed at Tracking the Native Police (online exhibition) available at http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/nativepolice/maps/thomas_map_content.html, accessed on 20 June 2009. 412 Assistant Protector William Thomas’s map of the Western Port Protectorate District 1841. 413 Field Notes, 19 February 2015. 101 remnants of place names like Narre Warren, Tooraduk and Koo-wee-rup attest, older Boon Wurrung conceptions of space were not obliterated, at least not at first, but rather overpowered through a process of re-inscribing which acted as a way of stating that these had-been-but-were-no-longer Boon Wurrung spaces, confirming the supremacy of settlers through a process of memorialisation, and relegation to the past.414

With regards to the physical landscape or spaces made by the Boon Wurrung, there is little that remains that is recognisable as Aboriginal on Churchill Island due to the extent of landscape alteration made by successive settlers, and later by its heritage managements in the postcolonial era.415 Throughout my research I had heard that there were middens on Churchill Island, but had great difficulty in finding any such site. Project Manager O’Neil, however, stated that there was a midden located near Bass Rock, and, after some searching, I found a site that appears to match O’Neil’s description, shown in Fig. 8. When I sent a draft of this chapter to Christine Grayden as part of my strategy in Phase Four of the Churchill Island Project to share authority with the project’s stakeholders, however, Grayden asked whether it was possible if this could be a naturally occurring shell bed, due to the absence of obvious charcoal in the image.416 Grayden noted, however, that Lovell Chen’s archaeologist had also found a shell midden on Churchill Island, and that it was possible we had identified the same site. As I did not have access to a finished copy of Lovell Chen’s report at the time of submitting my thesis, I cannot state that we had found the same site with certainty. What I can offer is that my fieldwork found that the line of shells shown in Fig. 8 is unique on Churchill Island’s coastline: there are no shell collections near this deposit, nor do other shell deposits elsewhere form such an obvious linear pattern. It is also notable that the shell size varies throughout the line of shells, which would appear to indicate that this midden was not formed through the natural action of waves.417 This would appear to support an argument that Lovell Chen’s archaeologist and I have identified the same site, but I would suggest that both this thesis and Lovell Chen’s

414 ‘The past leaves its traces’; ‘The abstract space took over from historical space, which nevertheless lived on, though gradually losing its force’ Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 37, 49. 415 Only one of which, PINP, understood and promoted Churchill Island as having a recognisable Indigenous past, or Indigenous space. 416 Grayden, in line with a number of other public stakeholders in the Churchill Island Project was connected to Churchill Island in three ways: as PINP Curator, as a member of FOCIS (and current secretary at the time of writing) and as a descendant of the Pickersgill family. Grayden, Comments by Christine Grayden on Rebecca’s CI Thesis, 8. 417 ‘Identifying Aboriginal Sites’ Aboriginal Heritage Office, Aboriginal Heritage available at http://www.aboriginalheritage.org/sites/identification/, accessed 14 February 2015. 102 report be accessed to verify this once Lovell Chen’s report is available. Regardless of my own efforts, however, it would appear that Churchill Island has a documentable Indigenous past, and it is important to recognise its past as an Indigenous space and landscape prior to settlement.

Fig. 8 Line of shells near Bass Rock matching O’Neil’s description of a shell midden on Churchill Island. Author’s own, 2014.

The Role of Spatial Practice in Making Colonial Space

The first, the most obvious, and with regard to Churchill Island’s current classification as a heritage site of state significance, most important aspect of Churchill Island history that this thesis interrogates is its relationship with exploration and its presumed connection with early settlement in Victoria. To analyse this aspect of Churchill Island’s history it is necessary to understand how Churchill Island became a colonial and later settler colonial space. Making space and landscape is a complex process. Not only should one consider the dialogue that between cognition and its physical expression as Tuan argues;418 it is important also to understand how ideas about space and landscape

418 Lees and Overing, ‘Anglo-Saxon Horizons: Places of the Mind in the Northumbrian Landscape’, 1. 103 are formed in the first instance, and then reinforced.419 Lefebvre has argued that space is produced through a triad of spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces.420 Of particular interest here is his idea of spatial practice, which ‘embraces production and reproduction, and the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation’.421 Lefebvre further refines this idea by arguing that the production of space necessitates performance422 and that ‘Like all social practice, spatial practice is lived directly before it is conceptualised’.423 Put simply, we experience space, and by extension landscape, first, and then we theorise or otherwise come to know it.424 Colonial scholars have usefully added to Lefebvre’s arguments about making space and landscape through their attention to the ways in which such knowledge was made in the colonial context. Carter argued that ‘spatial history begins…in the act of naming’.425 As Carter further elaborated, however, the process of naming for British explorers like Cook was a complex one: it did not precede knowing a place, but post-dated it.426 What emerges from a close examination of Churchill Island’s history is that this practice of naming was not only preceded by an experience of space, but at a more intrinsic level, the decision that one space was separate, and distinct from another. Indeed Joseph Amato, in his investigation of the genre of local history, argued that this is something that continues into the present day, since one of the local historian’s first tasks is to ‘come to terms with the accordion-like notion of region—and its subsets, zones, belts, sectors—in order to understand the natural endowments and human actions that distinguish a place’.427 This categorisation of space, into separate spaces, or separate landscapes, was an important way in which European explorers, map makers and later, surveyors, made sense of and made new colonial and settler colonial space. In her history of land surveying and colonisation in New Zealand, Byrnes demonstrated how British surveyors not only drew up plans for settlement; they

419 As Lefebvre notes, ‘Every space is already in place before the appearance of its actors’. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 57. 420 Ibid., 33. 421 Ibid. 422 To which is also tied ‘a guaranteed level of competence’. Ibid. 423 Ibid., 34. 424 Ibid. 425 Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, xxiv. 426 Ibid., 11–14. Carter’s use of the term explorer, which he contrasts with that of discoverer, is highly specific. Carter argues that an explorer is characterised by a concern with the particular, specific, rather than attempting to fit an experience within a more generalised taxonomy. Ibid., 18–22. 427 Joseph Amato, Rethinking Home: A Case for Writing Local History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 10. 104 completely replaced one system of categorising landscapes with another:428 surveyors’ work was comprised of ‘cutting through sites of significance to Maori’ and ‘superimpos[ing] a new spatial order on the land’.429 This process of categorising and defining space, as Carter and Byrnes have argued, was preserved and reproduced through language, through both naming and describing, and through the use of imagery: particularly maps, which were then circulated so as to reveal and communicate (what was to them) new knowledge about the spaces they encountered: unlike their botanist cousins, explorers could not take specimens home, only their understanding of them.430 Reception was also important. It was all very well to write a letter to home, but if it was not read, then the information it conveyed would be lost, and as the example of Churchill Island suggests, this too was a process, and one that needed to be maintained through the continued circulation of knowledge.431 The cognitive process therefore consisted of a number of discrete steps: definition, recognition or categorisation; naming; description and communication, which included reception and circulation. This cognitive process was complemented by a physical practice and its results; and also too by the movable or material culture that represented, or preserved these changes in other mediums, which in European culture usually meant maps and landscape imagery.432

The Whaleboat Voyage: What it Meant for Churchill Island

As I noted in Chapter One, public stakeholders stressed their desire that this thesis separate fact from fiction from the beginning of the project. Cutter began her history of Churchill Island with Surgeon George Bass’s aptly named ‘whaleboat’ journey, drawing on an older tradition established by Gliddon and his history of Phillip Island, which began the historical (as opposed to archaeological) section of his book with Bass’s journey, and later noted that ‘on a cave-like formation on [Churchill Island’s] tiny

428 Byrnes, Boundary Markers, 38. 429 Ibid., 32, 20. 430 ‘[S]urveyors did not simply “colonise” the land in a physical sense—rather, they possessed it through various conceptual, textual, and visual strategies.’ Byrnes, Boundary Markers, 6; Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, 10-18; Jan Kociumbas ‘Hunters and Collectors: Science and the South Pacific’ in Jan Kociumbas, The Oxford History of Australia Volume Two 1770–1860: Possessions Series Editor Geoffrey Bolton (Melbourne, Oxford, Auckland, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 63. 431 As indeed Lefebvre has argued. ‘If space is a product, our knowledge of it must be expected to reproduce and expound the process of reproduction.’ Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 36. 432 These are Lefebvre’s representational spaces, and representations of space. Ibid., 33. 105 coastline there are markings which may once have formed the letters BASS’.433 The idea that Churchill Island’s colonial history began with Bass was very popular at the beginning of my PhD, and indeed, there was some hope I would find evidence to support this contention. For this reason alone it is important to deal with the history of the 1797–8 whaleboat journey. In 1797, Guy Hamilton, Captain of the Sydney Cove, informed Governor Hunter of the peculiar tides and currents around Preservation Island, where Hamilton’s ship had been wrecked and most of its crew stranded.434 Hamilton’s reports reignited the debate about the nature of Van Diemen’s Land and whether or not it was joined to the mainland.435 Surgeon George Bass asked Hunter if he could lead an expedition south to ascertain the truth of the matter, as the ship he was stationed aboard was in dock for a series of ‘tedious repairs’.436 Hunter agreed and provided Bass with a ‘fine whaleboat and six weeks provisions’ as well as a crew of six sailors for the purpose of exploration.437 The voyage left Port Jackson on Saturday 2 December 1797. Bass and his crew did not establish the insularity of Van Diemen’s Land,438 but they did find a large bay on the southern coast of the Colony of New South Wales. Bass and his small crew spent two weeks there, largely so they could repair the whaleboat, which had nearly come apart after being ‘worked’ by high seas and gale force winds, before returning to Sydney due dwindling supplies.439 He called the bay Western Port, for ‘its relative situation to every other known harbour on the coast’.440

433 Pizzey also begins his history of Churchill Island here. Pizzey, Churchill Island: Victoria Conservation Trust, 3; Cutter, A Special Place, 1; Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 150, 196. 434 J.S. Cumpston, First Visitors to Bass Strait, 2. See also Michael Pearson, Great Southern Land: The Maritime Exploration of Terra Australis (Canberra: The Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2005), 85. 435 Cook had first speculated that a strait or sea might exist between the Van Diemen’s Land and New Holland after his voyage in the Endeavour up the eastern coast of Australia in 1770 and Hunter’s own survey work in the Sirius in 1789 had persuaded him that Van Diemen’s Land was likely to be an island. Harry and Valda Cole, Mr. Bass’s Western Port, 11. 436 Governor Hunter to Duke of Portland 1 March, 1798 in F.P. Labilliere, Early History of the Colony of Victoria Vol. 1 (London: 1878), 14–15. 437 The voyage left Port Jackson on Saturday 2 December 1797. Mathew Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis from Keith Bowden, ed., Mathew Flinders’ Narrative of Tom Thumb’s Cruise to Canoe Rivulet (South Eastern Historical Association, 1985), 2 in Cole, Mr. Bass’s Western Port, 15. 438 The existence of what was soon named ‘Basses Strait’ was finally proved by the two men later that year. Pearson, Great Southern Land, 85. 439 ‘At 3 the water was observed to gush in through the boat’s side pretty plentifully near the water line abaft. We had frequently remarked in the course of the morning how much looser the boat had become by the last two or three days’ working. As there appeared some risqué[sic] of the planking starting, I determined…to stand back for Furneaux’s Land…for the state of the boat did not seem to allow of our quitting the coast with propriety’ entry for Wednesday 3 January 1798 P.M. (or Tuesday evening shore 106

As noted above, Gliddon’s Phillip Island: In Picture and Story argues that Bass’s name may have been carved on the appropriately named Bass Rock on Churchill Island, but as the marks had vanished from all but local memory, this is impossible to verify. If they had remained this would not constitute proof that Bass or his crew had been responsible for the inscription.441 Bass’s journal of the journey provides only a very general description of the countryside surrounding the bay as a whole, and thus makes no mention of what is now known as Churchill Island.442 Nor do copies of his Eye Sketch of the bay he defined, delineated and described, suggest that he ever spent any time there. While no original copy of the Eye Sketch is extant, there are several copies that record the tracks of his small whaleboat.443 All versions illustrate the bay and show the track marks of Bass’s whaleboat, although only Arrowsmith’s reproduction gives all of the soundings Bass took.444 None of these charts, however, show the whaleboat tracks coasting alongside the second bend in what is now Phillip Island’s coastline that would mark where location of the future Newhaven or Churchill Island. There is thus no suggestion on any of these maps that Bass visited Churchill Island, although it does seem clear from Flinders’s sketch and chart that he could not have failed to have seen it. Thus, while area’s first European explorer, George Bass, probably saw the land now understood and recognised as Churchill Island in 1798, it is difficult to argue that he transformed it from a Boon Wurrung space into a distinct colonial space.

time) Cole, Mr. Bass’s Western Port, 34. Valda and Henry Cole have convincingly argued that the coastline Bass was in favour of remaining close to, worried by the prospect of the boat coming apart at sea, was in fact Wilson’s Promontory. See also Miriam Estensen, The Life of George Bass: Surgeon and Sailor of the Enlightenment (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2005), 85. Bass had originally hoped to supplement their stores with rice from the wreck of the Sydney Cove. Cole, Mr. Bass’s Western Port, 41. 440 Cole, Mr. Bass’s Western Port, 38. 441 Gliddon, Phillip Island in Picture and Story, 196. 442 Cole, Mr Bass’s Western Port, 39–41. 443 Arrowsmith’s 1801 reproduction of Bass’s Eye Sketch has been commonly used by historians to illustrate Bass’s journey, but as Valda and Harry Cole’s meticulous research proved in their Mr Bass’s Western Port, this is not the oldest, nor possibly the most accurate copy of Bass’s Eye Sketch available if one is willing to consider the charts Flinders created. The Cole’s reproduction of an original manuscript copy of Flinders’ Sketch of Parts between Van Diemen’s Land and New South Wales seen in the Francis Schooner 1798 shows Western Port, as does Flinders’ completed chart of the same region, Part of New South Wales Van Diemen’s Land circumnavigated in colonial sloop Norfolk. Flinders informed readers of both maps that the portions showing Western Port were taken directly from the now lost original Eye Sketch by Bass. Cole, Mr Bass’s Western Port, 62–75. 444 Flinders’s manuscript chart provides some soundings, though not as many as Arrowsmith. Flinders’s survey version does not provide any soundings. 107

Fig. 9 A. Arrowsmith, Charts of Port Dalrymple, Tasmania, Furneaux Islands, Western Port, Victoria and Twofold Bay, New South Wales, 20 February 1801. Courtesy of the NLA. 108

While Bass and his unnamed crew’s whaleboat journey does not begin Churchill Island’s story, it can assist in providing some essential background to it, when it is placed within a broader context. As early as 1750, Murdoch Meckenzie insightfully stated that ‘The lives and fortunes of sea-faring persons, in great measure, depend upon the accuracy of their charts’.445 As the wreck and subsequent rescue of the Sydney Cove, the loss of the Eliza and Bass’s boisterous 1798 whaleboat journey demonstrate, safety at sea depended on good knowledge of coastlines, marine hazards and knowledge of safe harbours. Indeed, Vivian Louis and Marion Hercock have argued that ‘more [British] ships were being lost through shipwreck than enemy action’, despite Britain’s wars with France.446 In 1795 Britain took its first steps towards improving safety at sea by establishing the office of Admiralty Hydrographer, who would be responsible for the production of accurate sea charts.447 Loss of life at sea, however, was not the only reason why the British Admiralty desired knowledge of waters around and beyond home. They also desired knowledge about possible resources that could be incorporated into the British Empire, a task that perhaps took on greater urgency with the loss of the American colonies in 1783.

Making Churchill Island

In order to better investigate coastal regions, their resources, and explore the safety that might be supplied by various harbours to British seafarers in particular, British Naval Captain John Schank designed a new type of exploratory vessel.448 Although originally envisaged for work in the American colonies, their subsequent loss meant that Schank’s work, which resulted in the construction of the Lady Nelson in 1799, found its way instead to the new, and perhaps newly desirable, Colony of New South Wales.449

445 Mary Blewitt, Surveys of the Sea: A Brief History of British Hydrography (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1957), 23; Sorrernson, ‘The ship as a Scientific Instrument in the Eighteenth Century’ in Vivian Louis and Marion Hercock, ‘Charting the Way to Empire’ in Mapping Colonial Conquest, Norman Etherington ed. (Crawley: University of Western Australia, 2007), 21. 446 Louis and Hercock, ‘Charting the Way to Empire’, 22. 447 Ibid. 448 His patron was Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland. It should be noted that Grant spells Schank’s name with only one c. Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, v, vi. 449 Although Schank had originally investigated design possibilities for the American colonies, their loss meant that his work was instead applied to New Holland. Ibid. 109

Nicknamed ‘Her Majesty’s Tinderbox’ for her small size,450 the Lady Nelson was the first purpose built ship sent from Britain to any part of New Holland designed specifically for survey work in shallow water, largely due to the nature of its retractable keels.451 It was thus not only designed to find the safe harbours and passages so desired by the British Admiralty, it was also designed to assist in the kind of meticulous survey work that would assist in the expansion of space available to colonies, who could then venture beyond restrictive boundaries of previously defined corridors of movement.452

With the rain pouring down, the Lady Nelson entered Western Port on Friday 20 March 1801, anchoring at 5PM at a place its captain, Lieutenant Grant, named in honour of the vessel on the following day.453 The voyage, as the Duke of Portland’s directives to Governor King make clear, was primarily concerned with hydrographical survey: Grant was to ‘pay especial regard to the examination and accurate delineation of all such harbours as he shall discover…and also of shoals and other dangers’ throughout the newly ‘discovered’ Bass Strait, and ‘fix in all cases, when in his power, the positions, both in latitude and longitude, of remarkable headlands, bays and harbours’.454 In addition to this, however, Portland also instructed that the captain of the expedition to ‘note in his journal…the comparative fertility of the soil’; assess the ‘vigour’ of any trees or shrubs; collect specimens and ‘plant such seeds of fruit trees and useful vegetables as he shall be supplied with’.455 Grant was joined by his First Mate John Murray, who had been part of the Lady Nelson’s maiden voyage from England to New South Wales and another unnamed crew member from the original voyage.456 To these were added locals, Ensign Francis Barrallier of the New South Wales Corps, who was to be responsible for the voyage’s cartography, Carley, the voyage’s botanist,

450 Ibid., 1. 451 Ibid., vi. 452 I am indebted to Alan Mayne’s edited work, Beyond the Black Stump, for this idea of specific and well-travelled corridors of movement, although Carter also discusses the manner in which exploration did not so much open up as country, as tracks through it. Alan Mayne, ‘Introduction: Beyond the Black Stump’ in Beyond the Black Stump: Histories of Outback Australia, Alan Mayne ed. (Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2008) 4–7; Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, 13. 453 It left Western Port on 29 April 1801. Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 101–124, 142. 454 Ibid. 455 Ibid. 456 Possibly Second Mate Bowen, promoted to First Mate on the Lady Nelson’s subsequent voyage to Bass Strait under then Acting Lieutenant Murray, but as Grant notes that one of the crew members who came out from Britain was found guilty of stealing and given twelve lashes, this is uncertain. Grant notes that the remainder of the crew declined to continue, as it would mean accepting colonial pay rather than that of the Royal Navy, and therefore much lower. Ibid., 84–5, 99–100. 110

Sydney Aboriginals Euranabie and Worogan, a convict crew and four unnamed privates from the New South Wales Corps to provide security.457

According to Grant’s published account of his voyages in the Lady Nelson, he left the ship two days after anchorage in the company of two unnamed crew members in search of the creek Bass had found on the eastern side of the Western Port, where he hoped to obtain fresh water.458 He was quickly distracted from this presumably important task, however, by the appearance of land rising from the mudflats Grant and the two unnamed men were traversing.459 Grant writes he recognised ‘an island, pleasantly situated and, separated from the Main by a very narrow channel at low water, but even then sufficient for a boat to pass’.460 Upon establishing the nature of this space as an island, he determined to visit it. The island’s landscape, wrote Grant, was of ‘gradual ascent [and] covered with trees of a considerable height, and much underwood.’461 While Grant’s narrative gives the impression that he discovered what was already an island, close reading of his account illustrates that this reading of the landscape had required a degree of work, and that Grant had been careful to determine that the entirety of this space was surrounded by water, even at low tide. Grant therefore would have been viewing the landscape for some time before deciding that it was an island, not an isthmus. His performance of data collection through exploration does not end here, however, and he explores the island on foot, carefully recording his view of its landscape, which considering the published nature of his writing, was not something he did only for himself, but so that others might also view the landscape through the medium of written description. While it would be easy to believe that Grant’s account was simply a ‘journal’, this particular journal was not private, but public. It was a professional account of his trip, albeit one that demonstrates Grant’s learning and refinement through his allusion to the precepts of romantic landscapes in the picturesque style, as the continuation of the description below illustrates.

457 Grant spells this as Bareillier. Carley was a protégée of Joseph Banks. Euranabie and Worogan were husband and wife respectively. Ibid., 88, 100, 106. 458 Ibid., 124. 459 Between present day Churchill and Philip Islands from where his ship had anchored at the present day Rhyll. 460 Ibid., 124–5. 461 Ibid., 125. 111

The situation was so pleasant, and the prospects round it so agreeable, that this, together with the richness of the soil, and the sheltered position of the spot, made me conceive the idea that it was excellently adapted for a garden.462

Grant’s description idealises the island he has ‘found’. Its views of Western Port are upheld as worthy of aesthetic appreciation, and its soil is similarly described using aesthetic terms, although the meaning conveyed is practical in nature. The tameability of this landscape, which is ‘excellently adapted for a garden’ places it within the newly fashionable tradition of the picturesque, and thus makes it desirable. All that was left, it might seem, was the determination of a new name, to transform it from a Boon Wurrung space into a British colonial place.

Carter argues that in ‘the act of place-naming, space is transformed symbolically into a place, that is, a space with a history’.463 Carter’s point here about symbolism is important, because it directs attention to the fact that place naming is a form of possession, an act not so much of identification, but identity making. Seed’s argument, that different European countries may have had different ways of claiming land as their own in the new world(s) between 1492 and 1640,464 but shared a habit of using ‘colloquial language’ (the language of ‘everyday life’) to make possession or conquest appear ‘natural’, is also useful.465 Grant uses this everyday language to describe the act of taking possession of Churchill Island. Grant tells his readers that due to his desire to plant a garden on the island, he decided to name it ‘Churchill Island’, because a gentleman named John Churchill, of Dawlish, Devonshire, had requested he plant a variety of seeds in the new Colony of New South Wales.466 It was a method that succeeded so well in making the possession of what is now known as Churchill Island seem natural to later British settler colonists that it is only very recently that this depiction of taking land from one people and claiming it for another has been

462 Ibid. 463 Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, xxiv. 464 Seed argues that colloquial language ‘construct[ed] objects in culturally specific ways’. Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 3. 465 Ibid., 6–7. 466 Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 125. 112 questioned,467 although as the History Wars demonstrated, there are many in the Australian community who were uncomfortable with this process.468

In addition to describing his possession of the island in everyday terms, and naming it as though this was an everyday occurrence, Grant also pinpoints Churchill Island geographically, specifying to his readers that this particular colonial space is located within the established Colony of New South Wales, further bolstering British claims to this space by placing it with an already established archaeology of knowledge. Indeed, the British nature of this new space is underlined in several ways; its geographic transfer to the British Colony of New South Wales; Grant’s honouring of an Englishman, whose pedigree of Englishness, as a ‘Dawlishman of Devonshire’ is recited so as to underline this point to the informed reader, and in its proposed use for a garden, which Seed argues was a specifically English form of taking possession.469 Or so Grant would have the reader believe.

Drawing on work completed by John Cawte Beaglehole, Carter points out that it was not unusual for explorers to alter the names of the places they explored as their journey continued, since naming was also a performance of honouring one’s patrons. Explorers’ naming habits were thus profoundly shaped by their cultural allegiance to a European, and in Grant’s case, a specifically British patronage system.470 Like Cook, Grant was not beholden only to one patron, but to many. The manner in which Grant refers to each person and frames their contributions to his prospective garden reveals his familiarity with the conventions of polite eighteenth-century British society: he allots space in accordance with rank and his praise of his benefactors is gendered.471 Indeed,

467 As I noted in the previous chapter, this process began at Churchill Island as recently as 1996. In her thesis, Colouring Within the Lines, Davis draws on Henry Reynolds to argue that this process began more generally in Australia in 1968 with W.E. H. Stanner’s Boyer Lecture, which called for an end to the ‘great Australian silence.’ Davis, Colouring Within the Lines, 8. See also Henry Reynolds, ‘The Breaking of the Great Australian Silence: Aborigines in Australian Historiography, 1955–1983’ The Trevor Reese Memorial Lecture, Australian Studies Centre, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, 30 January 1984, 1. 468 Macintyre, The History Wars, 3–8. 469 The English method, Seed argues, ‘stemmed from gardening rhetoric, land ownership practices and agricultural fertility rituals’. Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 5. 470 Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, 2–3, 11. Carter further argues that ‘Closer to the biographical centre may be found commemorated the Lords of the Admiralty, responsible for all marine endeavour, but responsible in particular [for Cook’s ship] the Endeavour.’ Ibid., 5. 471 As men, John Churchill, Esq. and Captain Schank preceded Lady Julia Percy, although Schank, as a mere friend, and perhaps as a member of the professional classes, merits only a single line, while 113

Grant later relates he ordered the garden to be planted on what became Churchill Island because he had not ‘found any other place fitter for the purpose’ during his subsequent six day exploration of Western Port.472 This suggests that Churchill Island’s name was finalised only after the garden had been planted: this theory is upheld by the text of the logbook, published in Historical Records of New South Wales (hereafter HRNSW), which records the planting of a garden on Churchill Island with rather less ceremony than the published account suggests.473

A Symbolic Act

In The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, Grant relates that on 28 March 1801, he ‘went on shore at Churchill’s Island, with the resolution of clearing ground for a garden, as I before mentioned was my intention’.474 He was not alone, however, but accompanied by a work party comprised of convicts, whose labour, rather than Grant’s, was to be responsible for the creation of the garden.475 The first task for convict work party was the clearing of the island’s Indigenous trees, shrubs and grasses, so as to create a new space for their European garden.476 In Clearings, Paul Fox notes that in order for colonial gardeners to create their own landscapes, they were required to destroy others, and that this process of clearing is an element ‘seminal to European settlement in Australia’.477 While Grant went exploring further up Bass’s creek, the convict crew selected for the work burnt ‘a space of about 20 rods’ and felled ‘the larger

Churchill has the island named in his honour and his thoughts paraphrased at length, while the Lady Julia Percy is honoured with the naming of a smaller island. Churchill’s supply of ‘useful vegetables’ signals his masculine practicality, while Lady Julia Percy’s ‘care and attention in preparing the pepins’ of the new variety of apple she had developed frames her contribution in the language of feminine domesticity and motherhood. Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 125; Venetia Murray, High Society: A Social History of the Regency Period, 1788–1830 (London: Viking, 1998), 21. 472 Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 131. 473 James Grant, ‘Log of the Lady Nelson, entry for Monday, 23 March 1801’ in HRNSW Volume IV, (1896), 483. 474 Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 131. 475 Ibid., 84–5, 99–100. 476 Ibid., 131, 136–7. 477 Paul Fox, Clearings: Six Colonial Gardeners and Their Landscapes (Carlton: Miegunyah Press, 2004, 2005), xvi–xvii. The desire to tame new colonial landscapes has been written about extensively. See Keith Hancock, Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man’s Impact on His Environment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972); Geoffrey Bolton, Spoils and Spoilers: A History of Australians Shaping their Environment (North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992). 114 trees’.478 They remained on the island while they worked; sleeping on the ground of the hut they built to shelter them, and terrorised by the local wildlife at night.479 As to the composition of the garden itself, Grant records that he sowed ‘several sorts of seeds,’480 in the space cleared by his men, although his published journal and the logbook of his journey record different plant combinations. According to the log, Grant planted wheat, onions, potatoes, cucumber, melon, apple seeds, plum and peach stones and a few grains of coffee and rice.481 In his published account, the list is slightly different, consisting of wheat, Indian corn, potatoes, peas, rice, coffee berries, the stones and kernels of a number of fruits, and apple pippins.482 The closeness of these two accounts, and John Murray’s record of finding corn, wheat, potatoes and onions the following summer,483 suggests that these two lists should be combined to give a more detailed picture of what was planted. According to Grant’s published journal, the ground was prepared with a single coal shovel, ‘thin and much worn’ because his gardening equipment had been forfeited to the Sydney Colony storehouses.484 In the same source he also records raising a ‘block-house of 24 feet by 12’, constructed with the trunks of the island’s trees.485

As I noted in Chapter Two microstoria’s interest in aspects of history that do ‘not quite fit’, and thus need to be explained, relates not only to the choice of subject

478 Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 131. The rod is a unit of measurement used particularly for land surveying, and could refer to either distance or area. The structure of Grant’s sentence here suggests the second option would be more appropriate. A rod of area, or one square rod is equal to 272.25 square feet or 25.292 85 square metres. This means that Grant’s convict crew cleared an area of 505.857m2. ‘Rod’ in Russ Rowlett, How Many: A Dictionary of Units of Measurement, Online Dictionary, Centre for Mathematics and Science Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, copyright for folder 2002, site copyright 2005. Available at http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictR.html, accessed 1 May 2009. 479 One of the men complained he was woken by an animal ‘gnawing on his hair’. The English dog that had accompanied the Lady Nelson failed to capture or kill the animal, but rather ‘bought him to the ground and made him howl, till at length it escaped into the wood.’ Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 137. 480 Ibid., 138. 481 Grant, ‘Log of the Lady Nelson, Entry for Monday, 23 March 1801’ in HRNSW Volume IV, (1896), 483. 482 The apple pippin is specified as a variety cultivated by Lady Julia Percy. Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 138. 483 Murray, Entries for Tuesday 8 and Wednesday 9 December 1801, The Log of the Lady Nelson, 310– 12. NLA Australian Manuscripts Collection MS8178, 484 Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 136. 485 The supports of which Grant records ‘being well fixed in the earth.’ Ibid., 138. 115 matter, but sources also.486 Churchill Island’s historians, Pizzey, Cutter and Baird, have all remarked on the fact that Grant wrote quite lovingly about the small island, with Cutter going so far as to suggest that this may have influenced his decision to plant a garden upon it and name it after John Churchill.487 Indeed, at first glance, one would think from Grant’s sentimental reflections in The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, that this and his care for his patrons were the sole reasons he had the garden planted: ‘I was anxious to mark my predilection for this spot, on account of its beautiful situation,’ writes Grant, ‘insomuch that I scarcely know a place I should sooner call my own than this little island.’488 Careful reading of Grant’s published account, however, directs attention to the sentence that sits somewhat at odds with Grant’s otherwise romantically styled prose: the one where he admits that he chose to plant a garden on Churchill Island because he had failed to find ‘any other place fitter for the purpose’.489 The logbook account is similarly unromantic, bluntly recording the incessant rain that plagued the voyage through the Bass Strait region,490 which Cole has convincingly argued may have been the reason why greater emphasis was given ‘to the horticultural and general terms of Whitehall’s directions, rather than exploration’.491 Furthermore, an examination of comparable missions conducted by both the British and the French during the period between the settlement of Sydney and Hobart Town (1788–1803) suggests that far from being special, Grant’s act of planting a garden was a normative activity for an explorer at this time, and demonstrates the continuation of an older tradition of claiming possession through gardening and erecting buildings that Seed noted was the hallmark of British explorers and settlers between 1492 and 1640.492 In 1788, Captain William Bligh had ordered the planting of apple trees and grape vines at East Cove on the eastern side of Adventure Bay, Bruny Island in present day Tasmania, during his exploration of what was then known as Van Diemen’s Land.493 He repeated

486 Peltonen, ‘Clues, Margins and Monads’: 349. 487 Pizzey, Victoria National Trust, 4; Baird, History and Her Story, 19; Cutter, A Special Place, 3. 488 Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 138. 489 Ibid., 131. 490 Grant, ‘Log of the Lady Nelson, Entry for Monday, 23 March 1801’ in HRNSW Volume IV, (1896), 483. 491 Cole, Western Port Chronology, 12. 492 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 17, 25–27. 493 Cynthia Turnball, ‘A Safe Anchorage—Early Europeans’ in Following their Footsteps: Exploring Adventure Bay, Cynthia J. Turnball, ed., (Adventure Bay, Bruny Island: Friends of Adventure Bay, 2006), 18. Bev Davis argues that it was Botanists David Nelson and assistant William Brown who were 116 this activity on his subsequent voyage there in 1792, when he planted a crop of watercress at what is now called Bligh’s Creek.494 In the same year, Bruni d’Entrecasteaux’s expedition’s official gardener, Felix Lahaie, also planted a garden, this time at Recherche Bay at Port du Nord, now Coal Pit Bay, also in Van Diemen’s Land.495 This ‘demonstration’ garden, measuring approximately nine by seven metres, also contained ‘useful foodstuffs’ like the garden on Churchill Island; including ‘cereal grains, mustard, endive, lentil radish, cress, sorrel, cabbage and potato’ as well as trees.496 This practice of gardening was repeated by the French at Recherche Bay on their return in 1793, at a site they named Bay des Roches (now Rocky Bay).497 Knowing, therefore, that the planting of gardens by both British and French explorers was a common occurrence during this time, it is important to ask why.

In early conversations with FOCIS members, there was a suggestion that perhaps Grant had planted the garden for practical purposes; that is to supply future European visitors to the area with useful foodstuffs. This reasoning drew on the foundational contextualisation of Churchill Island’s history by the VCT and others, Portland’s directives, and Grant’s own published reasoning, in which he traced his directive from John Churchill to plant a garden ‘for the future benefit of our fellow- men, be they Countrymen, European or Savages’.498 The subsequent history of the garden at Churchill Island, however, like that of other exploration gardens, suggests a more complex picture. While Acting Lieutenant Murray, who captained the Lady Nelson on her return voyage to Western Port the summer of 1801–2, may have recorded his regret that the ship’s schedule did not allow for his men to clear an even larger area on Churchill Island, to sow the wheat that had already ripened and thus ensure a crop for the following year,499 his interest in Churchill Island lasted only a day.500

responsible for the planting of the ‘three apple trees’ and ‘also grape vines etc.’ Bev Davis, Guide to Bruny Island History (Bruny Island Historical Society, 1990), 26. 494 Turnball, ‘A Safe Anchorage’, 18; Davis, Guide to Bruny Island History, 25. 495 Libby and John McMahon, Exploring the South Land: Tasmania Emerges from Terra Australis Incognita (Hobart: Maritime Museum of Tasmania, 2006), 35; Bruce Poulson, Recherche Bay: A Short History (Southport: The Management Committee of the Southport Community Centre, 2004, reprint 2005), 62. 496 Two other formal gardens were also planted. Poulson, Recherche Bay, 62–3. 497 Ibid., 65. 498 Grant, The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, 125. Field Notes, 2007. 499 During Murray’s appraisal of the island he found that the ‘Wheat and Corn that Lieut Grant had Sown in April last was in full Vigour, 6 Feet high and almost Ripe. The Onions also were grown in Seed, the Potatoes have disappeared’. Murray’s 2nd Mate located the potatoes later that day. Drawing on Cole, it 117

Subsequent European visitors to Western Port show little interest in Churchill Island. This list includes Acting Surveyor-General Charles Grimes one day visit to Western Port in January 1803;501 French explorers who entered Western Port in two small parties in the April of 1803, the first under the command of Pierre Bernard Millius, and the second under Midshipman Brévedent;502 a party of dozen men led by Lieutenant William Tuckey from the abortive 1803 Sorrento Settlement who penetrated Western Port only as far as present day Flinders in December 1803;503 Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbins and John Oxley’s survey of Western Port in 1804;504 Captain Jules S-C Durmont D’Urville’s exploration of Western Port between 12 and 19 November 1826505

seems likely the change in date between the two actions is the result of the ship’s day changing at the meridian, rather than midnight, so that the day starts with PM and ends in AM. Murray, The Log of the Lady Nelson, 310–11. NLA, Australian Manuscripts Collection MS 8178; Cole, ed., The Summer Survey, vii, xvii. 500 Murray and his men spent only one day on Churchill Island. Ibid. 501 The party landed in Port Phillip and spent much of their five weeks surveying that bay. They visited Western Port for only a single day, traveling over land Grimes described as the worst he had ‘almost ever passed’. Entry for 26 January 1803 from Grime’s Field Book No. 18: ‘General Observations, Port Phillip 1802 & 1803’ in James Flemming, ed., A Journal of Grimes’ Survey: The Cumberland in Port Phillip January–February 1803 (Malvern: Banks society Publications, 2002), 37; Cole, Western Port Chronology, 34. 502 These men were under the command of Captain Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin of the Naturaliste, the second ship of Nicholas Baudin’s voyage of discovery around Australasia. Millius’s rank was originally translated as Captain by Ernest Scott, but Christine Cornell has suggested that Lieutenant- Commander is a better approximation of his position. It seems from Millius’s narrative that Brévedent commanded the Captain’s gig whilst in Western Port, while Millius commanded a larger boat, fitted with sails. The map completed by Millius and Pierre Ange Francois Xavier Faure (translated as surveyor by Scott, geographer by Cornell and cartographer by Cole), suggests that neither Millius nor Brévedent sailed along the north east corner of Phillip Island, as this area does not record any soundings. Scott, ‘The Early History of Western Port—Part I’: 10–11; Nicholas Baudin, The Journal of Post Captain Nicholas Baudin Commander-in-Chief of the Corvettes Géographe and Naturaliste. Assigned by Order of the Government to a Voyage of Discovery, Translation by Christine Cornell (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1974), 582; Cole, ed., Mr Basses Westernport, 78. 503 The party had to return, after the (presumably convict) man responsible for carting their supply of bread had escaped into the bush. Cole, Western Port Chronology, 40. 504 Both Robbins and Oxley made very unfavourable reports on the countryside, making far more of the lack of water than Grant or Murray, and far less of its soils and the size of its trees. The men spent the majority of their time examining the land that bordered the channels that lay either side of the newly christened French Island, and did not examine Phillip Island in great detail. They certainly did not mention Churchill Island in their reports, and while it is possible they may have seen it, or even visited it, there is no way of knowing whether or not this was the case. Ibid, 43. 505 D’Urville’s corvette, the Astrolabe, however, housed far more men and resources than the two small boats Hamelin had assigned to the port and it appears that D’Urville made good use of his superior resources. D’Urville records that he moored the ship at Flinders’s mooring, at the Mangrove Creek clearly unaware that it was Grant and Murray who had supplied Flinders with the details of Western Port, for Flinders himself had never visited the harbour, as Helen Rosenman carefully footnotes in her translation of the French original of D’Urville’s Two Voyages to the South Seas. Like his countrymen before him 118 and Captain Samuel Wright of the Buffs, and Captain F.A. Wetherall of the Royal Navy ‘s exploration of Western Port as part of the failed Western Port Settlement later in 1826.506 Of these, only the 1826 expeditions of D’Urville, and Wright and Wetherall, even note Churchill Island’s existence on their maps,507 which is otherwise unmentioned, and presumably unvisited along with its garden during this thirty year period, with the possible exception of the sealing fraternity, who Boultbee notes anchored their ship next to Churchill Island.508 This suggests that while it is possible the garden was planted to provide passing sailors with useful foodstuffs, it is more likely that Churchill Island’s garden was a ‘demonstration’ garden like that at Recherche Bay. As the subsequent history of these demonstrations gardens attest, once an initial assessment had been completed the following year, these gardens ceased to be useful, and were subsequently ignored, or even forgotten.509 Their conscious purpose was an exploration of growing conditions in a foreign place; no more. This conscious use of space, however, was not I argue, the only reason why colonial explorers altered the landscapes they encountered.

If we return to Lefebvre’s injunctions about the nature of space and the way it is produced (and reproduced) then it is possible to see that spatial practice, which could

D’Urville did not visit Churchill Island, and although its outline is included in his map of Western Port, it is not named. Durmont D’Urville, An Account in Two Volumes of Two Voyages to the South Seas, 54, 59. 506 Wetherall had ‘volunteered’ to assist Wright. Wright was required to select the site for settlement ‘in conjunction with Captain Wetherall’, provide an ‘account of the place’ and a ‘Sketch of the proposed settlement and neighbouring Country’. Wright and Wetherall were joined on the expedition by Hovell, who was to assist Wright by surveying the landscape he and Hume had presumably visited so briefly in 1824. Despatch No. 77, per brig Fairfield, Governor Darling to Earl Bathurst 10 October 1826. HRA Series I, Vol. XII, 640; Colonial Secretary Macleay to Captain Wright, Despatch No.1 in Commonwealth of Australia, HRA Series III: Vol. V (The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1922), 823, 827-8; Despatch No.15 per ship Marquis of Huntly, Governor Darling to Earl Bathurst. HRA Series I Vol. XIII (The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1920), 74. 507 Durmont D’Urville, An Account in Two Volumes of Two Voyages to the South Seas, 54, 59; Wetherall, Chart of Western Port in Bass’s Straits by Captn. Wetherall, H.M.S. Fly 1827, London, date of publication unknown. 508 Boultbee recounts that the first stop for whalers was usually at Cape Barren Island and the second at Preservation Island. The Sally then sailed west to King Island, thence north east to the Kent Group, visiting afterwards Birbeck’s (Sealers) Cove at Wilson’s Promontory and lastly Western Port. The Sally picked up three men that had been dropped off by the same vessel several months earlier at Phillip Island. Boultbee relates that another vessel, an unnamed schooner, had anchored between Phillip and Churchill Island only two months later, further suggestive that Western Port was frequently visited by sealing vessels during the mid-1820s. John Boultbee, Journal of a Rambler: The Journal of John Boultbee, edited by June Starke (Auckland, Melbourne, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 13–22, 29. 509 Murray, The Log of the Lady Nelson, 310–11, Australian Manuscripts Collection MS 8178; Poulson, Recherche Bay, 90. 119 also be termed action or performance, form only part of Lefebvre’s triad: representational spaces and representations of space and are also necessary in the production of space.510 Leaving aside representations of space for the moment, it is useful to consider Lefebvre’s arguments that representational spaces ‘embody complex symbolisms’, because it is symbolism that close analysis suggests was the underlying reason why explorers planted gardens like that at Churchill Island, Bruny Island and at Recherche Bay during the early nineteenth century.511 As Banivanua Marr and Edmonds have both argued, new spaces are not only constructed through language and intellectual practices,512 but through physical transformations also.513 As Seed has convincingly demonstrated, replacing Indigenous landscapes with colonial gardens was a symbolic act, and this action created new symbolic spaces, that physically represented the new colonial space that explorers were writing over Indigenous understandings.514 Fox has also argued that ‘through their landscapes and their writings, colonial gardeners promoted the ideal of a land intensively shaped by disciplined human activity’.515 The decision to name the island after John Churchill, because a garden had been planted on it thus described a symbolic act, and the symbolic space—the colonial demonstration garden—fixed British claims to the Island and by extension the surrounding area into the very earth, as indeed Seed has noted the alternative meaning of ‘planting’ came to mean in English culture during the sixteenth century.516 While this aspect was perhaps unconscious, this does not reduce its import, since it demonstrates that while European explorers visited colonial spaces, they desired to make the presence they represented there permanent, and making new landscapes was a way of achieving this goal.

510 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 33. 511 Ibid. 512 Banivanua Mar and Edmonds, ‘Introduction: Making Space in Settler Colonies’, 6. 513 The desire to tame new colonial landscapes has been written about extensively. Fox, Clearings, xvi– xvii. See also Keith Hancock, Discovering Monaro: A Study of Man’s Impact on His Environment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972); Geoffrey Bolton, Spoils and Spoilers: A History of Australians Shaping their Environment (North Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1992). 514 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 25–30. 515 Fox, Clearings, xvii. 516 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 29. Carter noted that names by explorers were often descriptive, and not merely ways of honouring influential and powerful people. Carter, The Road to Botany Bay, 14–17. 120

Representing Space: Knowledge and Circulation

As Roger Martin noted in his 1980 environmental assessment of Churchill Island, there are no visible remains of the 1801 garden extant, and its physical location remains unknown,517 a point of ongoing concern for FOCIS.518 Were it not for Grant’s published journal, the logs of the Lady Nelson and the maps drawn up as a result of the 1801 survey, it is likely that we would have had no idea that the British had altered Churchill Island’s landscape in any way, or delineated and defined its space through the practices of naming and description so early in the annals of Australia’s colonial history. Therefore, the log books, journal and chart produced by explorers were not adjuncts to the process of making colonial space—they were vital elements of it, as indeed Lefebvre’s arguments about the production of space suggest.519 As I will demonstrate, however, it was not enough to simply produce these representations of Churchill Island’s space: they needed to be circulated so as to maintain networks of knowledge and understanding. As European systems of knowledge privileged the written word, scholars like Carter have chosen to concentrate on the way in which language shaped and helped create colonial space, but research conducted for this chapter suggests that maps, charts and surveys should be considered to have been equally influential due to their greater circulation, and as Byrnes and Ryan have argued, for their use of the ‘powerful gaze’.520

As Portland’s directive make clear, Grant was responsible for reporting his findings regarding the Bass Strait and Western Port region, including the ‘accurate

517 In his environmental assessment of Churchill Island, Roger Martin noted that this presented its then managers, the VCT, with a substantial impediment to their desire to educate Victorians about their origins: ‘the actual location of the most significant historical aspect of the Island [Grant’s Garden had] yet to be discovered’, Martin argued that this was extremely problematic in terms of presenting this aspect of Churchill Island’s history to a visiting public. Martin, McGregor and Mathews, Churchill Island Master Plan, 59. Thirty years later the problem remains unresolved. 518 As I noted in Chapter One, one of the items a process of shared inquiry determined this thesis should address was the location of ‘the site where the first crops were planted’. When I was first interviewed by then PINP and FOCIS for the project one of the tasks I was told they were hoping I could complete was to find the location of the garden. I did not, although I did succeed in rediscovering a map of the island apparently marking its location. The map however, is not very accurate, and it is entirely possible that its representation of the garden is symbolic, rather than locational. At a more recent FOCIS meeting, member David Maunders asked current PINP CEO Jackson if it would be possible for an archaeological survey of the island to be completed to try to find some trace of the 1801 garden. Field Notes, FOCIS AGM, 10 August, 2013. 519 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 33. 520 Ryan, The Cartographic Eye, 7–8, 101–4; Byrnes, Boundary Markers, 12. 121 delineation of all such harbours’ that Grant had explored.521 Grant’s log of his 1801 voyage to Bass Strait was subsequently given to Governor King, who in turn ensured it was transmitted to Whitehall, along with the chart created by Ensign Barrallier that showed the extent of British exploration and acts of possession in the Bass Strait region.522 Acting Lieutenant Murray’s subsequent return to Western Port in 1801–2, and the log he helped create, was also transmitted to King, and this not only verified the continued existence of the garden on Churchill Island but also the nomenclature of place making through naming and description established by Grant and Bass. Unfortunately for the British, the copy of the log and its maps bound for the Admiralty Hydrographic Office were lost when the ship carrying it was en route to England was shipwrecked.523 This flow of knowledge from the periphery to the centre of the burgeoning British Empire was designed to ensure that new colonial places made by British explorers, like Churchill Island, became part of the canon of British and European knowledge. This was important, because other European sea powers had established customs relating to rights of ‘possession’, and the Dutch, in particular had established a system of map making and description that the British Admiralty found useful, if unconvincing as a form of claiming possession without the added support of physically transforming former Indigenous landscapes through acts of gardening or building.524 In addition to logs and journals, however, explorers also created charts or maps; although in the case of Churchill Island it was Ensign Francis Barrallier who was responsible for producing these. The chart created by Barrallier has been of interest to the public stakeholders of this thesis, since one of the agreed items of my research defined through a process of shared inquiry was finding the location of the 1801 garden.525 While I have not undertaken any archaeological survey of Churchill Island in the manner that FOCIS might have wished,526 I did ‘rediscover’ the map that outlined the space used to make the 1801 garden.527 As I noted in a presentation at a FOCIS meeting not long after

521 Portland to King, HRA Volume 3, 62–66. 522 Ibid. 523 The log was aboard the Caroline, which disappeared at sea. Cole, Mr Bass’s Western Port, 64. 524 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 6. 525 See Chapter Two. 526 Lovell Chen’s use of archaeological surveying as part of their heritage assessment of the site in 2014– 15 has been well received by FOCIS members in particular. Anita Brady, ‘Presentation of Lovell Chen’s progress on drafting a Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island’, Field Notes, FOCIS meeting, Churchill Island, 14 February, 2015. 527 During my time at the NLA as part of their summer scholarship programme I took the opportunity to access their map collection, which at that time had not yet been digitised. My shock at finding an image 122 finding this map, its delineation of Churchill Island is unfortunately not very accurate, but it does suggest that the garden was spread over the south western side of the island in the general area above the present day site of the memorial cairn.528

Fig. 10 A Portion of Chart of Western Port and Coast to Wilson’s Promontory forming Part of the North Side of Bass Strait. Surveyed by order of Governor King by Ensign Barrallier In HM Armed Surveying Vessel Lady Nelson Lieut. James Grant, Commander in March, April and May 1801. Courtesy of the NLA.

that clearly delineated the existence of the garden was all the greater because I immediately recognised the map as being same one that appeared in Valda Cole’s Western Port Chronology, in her chapter exploration by the French. The resolution in Western Port Chronology, however, had been insufficient to pick out the dashed outline that represented the garden on Churchill Island. The finding not only pleased FOCIS, but also the staff of the NLA, who were delighted that such an obscure item within their map collection was considered to be a desirable item to have access to. It is notable that digitisation of the NLA’s map collection gathered speed after this incident, although I would not want to claim credit since the unwieldy, fragile and aesthetically pleasing nature of maps makes them ideal subjects for digitisation. 528 E. Rebecca Sanders, Charting a History of European Exploration at Western Port, Presentation, FOCIS Annual General Meeting, Churchill Island, 26 July 2008. 123

Grant published his completed journal of his voyages aboard the Lady Nelson, which included his visit to Western Port and the creation of Churchill Island and its garden, in 1803. The circulation of The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery is difficult to trace with exactness, but it is reasonable to suggest that its circulation would have been limited by its cost, as the journal was large and featured a number of coloured plates. Nonetheless, its translation into Dutch and German would have ensured its circulation was not limited to Britain.529 Close reading of William Hovell’s account of his journey to Western Port in 1827 suggests that Hovell may have owned or otherwise accessed a copy of The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, since he refers to material from Lady Nelson’s journey to Bass Strait in 1801 that did not appear in the ship’s log, although it is also possible he had accessed an unpublished manuscript of Grant’s journal retained by the colonial administration.530 Hovell, however, is one of the few early nineteenth visitors to Western Port to refer to the 1801 or 1802 journeys of exploration carried out in the Lady Nelson. Examination of Surveyor General John Oxley’s communications with Governor Darling regarding Western Port in 1826 suggests that he did not have access to The Narrative of the Voyage of Discovery, but instead used the Grant’s log of his journey in the Lady Nelson as the basis of his recommendations against settlement there.531 Close reading of Western Port’s explorers’ accounts, and secondary histories of these accounts, suggests that the majority of Western Port’s early nineteenth century European visitors were entirely unaware of the visits by the Lady Nelson in 1801 and 1801–1802. This being the case, it is important to ask how colonial spaces made by Grant, like Churchill Island, which continued a process begun by Bass, were maintained, rather than being lost. The answer lies in the conventions not of language, but rather the combination of language and imagery found in charts and maps and their greater circulation.

Historians of early colonial Australia and cartography like to present the turn of the nineteenth century as the golden age of exploration, in part due to the involvement

529 Rodney Davidson, A Book Collector’s Notes on Items Relating to the Discovery of Australia, the First Settlement and the Early Coastal Exploration of the Continent (North Melbourne: Cassell Australia, 1970), 125–6. 530 Hovell to Darling 27 March 1827. HRA Series III: Despatches and papers relating to the Settlement of the States, Vol. V (The Library Committee of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1922), 859. 531 Oxley’s described Grant and Barrallier’s reports as ‘unfavourable, as respected the adequate supply of fresh water and convenient access to its shores’. Murray’s work in Western Port is not mentioned at all. Despatch No. 77, per brig Fairfield, Governor Darling to Earl Bathurst 10 October 1826. HRA Series I, Vol. XII, 639–44. 124 of luminaries like Cook, Flinders and Baudin.532 It would seem, however, that the information often painstakingly recorded on these voyages was not always remembered, circulated or otherwise made available. While the French’s first visit to Western Port so soon after the voyages of the Lady Nelson, easily accounts for the lack of reference to Grant, Murray or Barrallier’s efforts in making new colonial places, the absence of references to their work in later accounts is notable.533 When the French visited Western Port for the second time, followed not long behind by a British attempt to settle Western Port in 1827, neither party used the maps completed by Barrallier and Murray. Instead, both French and British colonial visitors used charts created or copied from Matthew Flinders. Captain Durmont D’Urville, of the corvette Astrolabe, recorded that he moored at Flinders’ mooring, at the Mangrove Creek, erroneously presuming that Flinders had visited Western Port.534 Since Churchill Island appears unnamed on his map, and he refers to Grant’s Lady Nelson Point as Mangrove Creek, this suggests that D’Urville possessed a copy of a map called Carte du Detroit de Basse entre la Nouvelle Galles Meridionale et la Terre de Diemen, which shows the tracks of the Lady Nelson, rather than those of Bass’s whaleboat: this is in spite of Bass being noted as the source of this portion and it being clear that Grant’s place names are not included. The map’s authorship is attributed Flinders.535 Similarly, Wetherall’s chart, despatches to Governor

532 Norman Etherington, Mapping Colonial Conquest: Australia and Southern Africa (Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2007); Pearson, Great Southern Land; Trevor Lipscomb, On Austral Shores: A Modern Traveller’s Guide to the European Exploration of the Coasts of Victoria and New South Wales (Annandale: Envirobook, 2005); Jan Bassett, ed., Great Explorations: An Australian Anthology (Oxford, New York, Auckland, Bangkok, Bombay, Calcutta, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, Delhi, Florence, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Madras, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City Nairobi, Paris, Port Moresby, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996); Geoffrey Ingleton, Matthew Flinders: Navigator & Chartmaker (Genesis Publications Inc, 1983); Ernest Scott, Terre Napoleon: A History of French Explorations and Projects in Australia. With Eight Illustrations and Maps (London: Methuen & Co., LTD., 1910); Kociumbas, The Oxford History of Australia Volume 2 1770–1860. See also Danielle Clode, Voyages to the South Seas: The Search of Terres Australes (Carlton: The Miegunyah Press, an imprint of Melbourne University Press, 2007, 2008); Peter Trickett, Beyond Capricorn: How Portuguese Adventurers Secretly Discovered and Mapped Australia and New Zealand 250 Years Before Captain Cook (Bowden : East Street Publications, 2007); Miriam Estensen, Discovery: The Quest for the Great South Land (St Leonards: Allen and Unwin, 1998). 533 Xavier Faure, Esquisse du Port Western par Mr. Faure, ingenieur-geographe, d'apres ses operations et celles de Mr. Milius, Offer de Marine (Avril 1802), MAP RaA 2. Part 14, available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-raa2-s14, accessed 2 November 2008. 534 D’Urville, An Account in Two Volumes of Two Voyages to the South Seas, 54. 535 Mathew Flinders, Carte du Detroit de Basse entre la Nouvelle Galles Meridionale et la Terre de Diemen levee par M. Flinders Lieutenant du vaisseau Anglais la Reliance par ordre de M. le Gouverneur Hunter en 1798 et 1799, Depot Generale de la Marine, date unknown, available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-t1493-e, accessed 6 June 2014. 125

Darling, and the log of his ship, HMS Fly, also ignores Grant, Barrallier and Murray’s collective cartographical material, logs, and Grant’s published journal, although Wetherall makes it clear he accessed both Bass and Flinders’s work.536 In his Chart of Western Port in Bass’s Straits he calls Grant’s Lady Nelson Point, and D’Urville’s Mangrove Creek the ‘Anchorage’,537 but interestingly uses some of Grant’s names for places, including Churchill Island. This is particularly remarkable, because like Faure in 1802, Wetherall presents Churchill Island as an isthmus, rather than an island.538 While Faure’s tracks and the presentation of the landscapes on his chart of Western Port suggest that in Faure’s case, this may have been because he and his men did not explore the part of Western Port where Churchill Island is located in great detail, and like Bass, viewed Churchill Island from afar, this is probably not the case with Wetherall, although his logs and despatches make no mention of visiting the island.

536 In the log of the Fly, it is clear that he carried out a great deal of work around Fort Dumaresq, now the township of Ryll, with the hope that he would find sufficient water to suggest it as a site for settlement. He also had a well dug in the vicinity; a road made across Phillip Island; a flagpole erected and landed two six pound guns. He took formal possession of it on 3 December 1826, which included the performance of divine service on shore at the newly named Fort Dumaresq, followed by the hoisting of the Union Jack and a twenty-one gun salute. Entries for Wednesday 29 November and Saturday 2 December and Sunday 3 December 1826, F.A. Wetherall, Log of the HMS/ Sloop Fly, under the command of Wetherall 1826 AJCP PRO Reel 5748, microfilm; Captain Wetherall to Governor Darling 27 December 1826. HRA Series III, Vol. V, 832; Report on Western Port, enclosure in Captain Wetherall to Governor Darling, 24 January 1827. HRA Series III, Vol. V, 842. 537 Captain Wetherall to Governor Darling 27 December 1826. HRA Series III, Vol. V, 832. 538 Others include Elizabeth Cove and Sealers Cove. Wetherall leaves Margaret Island and Round Island unnamed, although they are marked on his map as points K and E respectively. Wetherall, Chart of Western Port in Bass’s Straits by Captn. Wetherall, H.M.S. Fly 1827, London, date of publication unknown, available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-rm681a-e, accessed 2 November 2008; Faure, Esquisse du Port Western, available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-raa2-s14, accessed 2 November 2008. 126

Fig. 11 Wetherall, Chart of Western Port in Bass’s Straits by Captn. Wetherall, H.M.S. Fly 1827, London: date of publication unknown. Courtesy of the NLA.

What is more likely is that since the amount of water between Churchill Island and Phillip Island is not always navigable by ship at low water, Wetherall chose to present the landscape as an isthmus so as to inform navigators of the low waterline surrounding the island’s southern shoreline, which Cole notes was a common practice in maritime charts, since the purpose of hydrographic survey was to assist in navigation.539 This being the case, there are

539 Indeed, it is clear from Wetherall’s chart that navigation was what he particularly sought to improve, since French Island is also presented as lying within a low water mark, although Wetherall does not contest its 127 two plausible reasons why the space defined as Churchill Island retained its name, if not its insular identity. The first is that Wetherall utilised the sealers’ knowledge of Western Port to fill in some of the portions of his map.540 From Boultbee’s somewhat untrustworthy account,541 we know that sealers knew and used Churchill Island’s name, as he recounts that a sealing vessel anchored beside after he has spent three months on Phillip Island.542 Given that Wetherall did not trust much of the data the sealers gave to him about Western Port, it seems more likely that he used the information supplied by Flinders’s Chart of Terra Australis, Sheet V South Coast, which was published by the London Hydrographic Office in 1814.543 This theory is particularly appealing since some of the names on Flinders’s 1814 Chart of Terra Australis, Sheet V South Coast that are the same on Wetherall’s Chart of Western Port in Bass's Straits, notably Cape Woolami for Grant’s Snapper Point, but which differ from Barrallier’s Chart of Western Port and Coast to Wilson’s Promontory.544 Flinders’ chart incorporates the Lady Nelson’s tracks in the inset of Western Port and Port Phillip, and has matches for several of Grant’s names that appeared on Barrallier’s1803 chart, including Churchill Island.545 Indeed, close examination of Flinders’s 1814 Chart of Terra Australis, Sheet V South Coast reveals that the shape of the landmasses and soundings in the insert of Western Port and Port Phillip visually indicate that the map work here is Barrallier’s, and that Flinders has merely altered a couple of names and retained his friend Bass’s tidal insularity. Cole’s suggestion that Wetherall retained French Island’s insularity for diplomatic purpose, since the French had claimed it as discovery seems to provide a good explanation for this behaviour. Cole, Mr Bass’s Western Port, 66. 540 The sealers had been living on Phillip Island since September and had successfully grown two acres of wheat and maize. Captain Wetherall to Governor Darling, 27 December 1826. HRA Series III, Vol. V, 831. 541 Since, as June Starke notes, the portion of his Journal of a Rambler that deals with his visit to Western Port is based on his memory, rather than his diaries, which were lost in a confrontation with Maori on Ruapuke Island. 542 Boultbee, Journal of a Rambler, 29; Finding accounts of sealing routes and the nomenclature of names and places they utilised are difficult because as J.S. Cumpston notes, the sealing industry’s competitive spirit made the industry a secretive one, and ship’s captains provided only the vaguest description of where their ships had travelled for publication on shipping lists. One of the few ships known to have visited the Western Port specifically for sealing, other than the Sally of Boultbee’s narrative, was the brigantine Active, which arrived in Sydney in 1809 with 1300 skins. Compared with other published hauls dating from the turn of the nineteenth century, the haul was not large, but as the ship also notes that many skins were ‘lost in gales’ it seems likely the original amount was far larger. Cumpston, First Visitors to Bass Strait, 68; J.S. Cumpston, Shipping Arrivals and Departures, Sydney, Vol. 1, 1788–1825 (Canberra: 1983); Cole, Western Port Chronology, 44. 543 Mathew Flinders, Chart of Terra Australis, Sheet V South Coast (London: Capt. Hurd, R.N. Hydrographer to the Admiralty, 1814), available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-t594-e, accessed 2 November 2008. 544 Ibid.; Wetherall, Chart of Western Port in Bass’s Straits; Barrallier, Chart of Western Port and Coast to Wilson’s Promontory. 545 These include Grant Point, which is changed on Wetherall’s map to Point Grant, and Tortoise Head on French Island as well as Churchill Island. Ibid. 128 measurements.546 This demonstrates how maps, rather than published journal or logbooks, operated as an important means of circulating knowledge, because map makers, unlike writers, would often include other’s work within their own, thus maintaining an apparatus of knowledge even when the individual(s) responsible, or their original work, had faded into obscurity. Such apparatus, however, were not comprehensive, and in the case of Churchill Island, the dotted line that graced Barrallier’s earlier map was not reproduced in Flinders’s later works, and was thus absent from the representational works of subsequent explorers.

There was a notable gap in the exploration of Western Port and the larger Bass Strait region after the 1826 settlement was aborted, but in 1837, Britain’s Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty became interested once more in completing the survey of Australian coastal waters.547 In July of that year the H.M.S. Beagle left Britain under the command of Commander John Clements Wickham, with John Lort Stokes as its assistant surveyor.548 According to Marden Horton, the Beagle’s first visit to Western Port in January of 1839 was unplanned: a result of bad weather which had urged Wickham to seek shelter in the bay from the fury of Bass Strait.549 Although game was plentiful in Western Port, water was scarce, and nine days after its arrival, the Beagle left to replenish its stores, although the crew’s hunting of local wildlife added greatly to their collection of taxidermy.550 While there is no mention of surveying activities in Horton’s history, John Lort Stokes’s published journal, Discoveries in Australia, suggests some exploration did in fact occur during this brief visit. Stokes writes

that after leaving Port Phillip we surveyed the coast eastward and anchored at the entrance of Port Western, after dark on the 10th. Next morning we

546 Flinders, Chart of Terra Australis, Sheet V South Coast; Barrallier, Chart of Western Port and Coast to Wilson’s Promontory 547 Marsden Horton, Mariners are Warned: John Lort Stokes and the H.M.S. Beagle in Australia 1837-1843 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1989), 1. 548 Stokes had already had two previous experiences on survey missions on board the Beagle. In 1825 he had served as midshipman under Phillip Parker King on King’s survey of the coast of South America. Marsden Horton has posited that Wickham, who was accounted an excellent seaman and commander in more general terms, had been partnered with Stokes to ensure that the hydrographical element of the voyage would be of an equally high standard. Ibid., 2, 3, 10. 549 Ibid., 131. 550 Ibid., 131–2 129

examined the south-west side part of Grant Island, and moved the ship to more secure anchorage off the N.E. point.551

Although Stokes’s writings do not give the impression that a survey of Western Port was completed in any sort of methodical fashion during the Beagle’s first visit to the bay, he records the results of their search for signs of the aborted settlement of 1826552 and his investigation of Wetherall’s Fort Dumaresq, where there remained only ‘one or two indicators of the fact a settlement had formerly existed on the spot’, the most obvious of which was an ‘old flag staff still erect on a bluff on the N.E. end of Grant Island.’553 Stokes’s descriptions of Fort Dumaresq and the few traces remaining of the 1826 settlement, abandoned only twelve years earlier, are illuminative of how ephemeral colonial landscaping carried out by European visitors to Western Port during the first half of the nineteenth century could be.

In December of 1842, the Beagle returned to Western Port’s shores.554 By this time Stokes had become the ship’s acting commander, and thus its chief hydrographic officer.555 Stokes, however, was not personally involved with the hydrographic survey of the bay, which he left under the guidance of Lewis Roper Fitzmaurice,556 a ships mate, who had been promoted by Stokes to assistant surveyor upon his own promotion to acting commander.557 Fitzmaurice and a small party from the Beagle’s crew were dropped off at Bass River in Western Port, from whence they were transported by the region’s first permanent settler, John Anderson, to Cape Patterson via his bullock dray to observe the cape’s position.558 Another party was also landed on Phillip Island, which Stokes referred to as Grant Island, to collect tidal observations while the Beagle made for Port Phillip.559 The map that Stokes created from the work of Fitzmaurice and his men, Australia, Bass Strait, Port Western, demonstrates that unlike his predecessors, Stokes appears to have been aware of Grant’s 1801 journey in

551 John Lort Stokes, Discoveries in Australia; With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle in the Years 1837–38–39–40–41–42–43, by Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, also, A Narrative of Captain Owen Stanley’s Visits to the Islands in the Arafūra Sea (London: T. and W. Boone, 1846), 293. 552 Ibid., 294. 553Although in the case of the settlement, Stokes records that the few settlers he encountered had helped this process through their plunder of building materials. Ibid., 294. 554 Horton, Mariners are Warned, 294. 555 Wickham was invalided in March 1841, and Stokes became Acting Commander. Ibid., 234; 556 Stokes, Discoveries in Australia, 477. 557 Horton, Mariners are Warned, 250. 558 Stokes, Discoveries in Australia, 477. 559 Ibid., 477. 130 the Lady Nelson to Western Port, because he names present day Phillip Island Grant Island in his honour.560 He also depicts Churchill Island as an entity in its own right, and retains Grant’s name for it, but does not show the existence of the 1801 garden.561 Churchill Island is shown on the map as timbered, except in two bare patches on the innermost section of the island to the north and southwest of the island’s central hill.562 It is likely that these were left blank by Stokes because his men could not see from their shoreline vantage point through the scrub, and ascertain with certainty what kind of landscape lay at the heart of the island, except where the ground was high enough to view, such as the hill (which is shown as timbered country). This suggests two things: firstly that Fitzmaurice and his men did not visit Churchill Island on foot, and secondly; that the garden planted by Grant and his men in 1801 had disappeared from the landscape, much like the other transformations wrought by European visitors at the 1826 Settlement and Fort Dumaresq. What is particularly notable about Stokes’s representation of Western Port, apart from its detail, is that it was the first attempt to accurately depict the topography and vegetation of the whole landscape, not just those parts deemed important for mariners. This perhaps was why Churchill Island regained the island status Grant had first awarded it in 1801, because the view desired was one of a landscape, rather than a seascape. The reason for this, I suggest, lies in Stokes’s published journal: his second in command Fitzmaurice and his men had been assisted by a settler, John Anderson, and for the first time, a map of Western Port was being depicted with the settling audience in mind, rather than a naval one.

560 Ibid. 561 Commr J.L. Stokes, Australia, Bass Strait, Port Western surveyed by Commr. J.L. Stokes, R.N., 1843 (London : Published according to Act of Parliament at the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty ; Sold by R.B. Bate, agent for the Admiralty charts 21 Poultry & Royal Exchange East, April 12th 1845), available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-vn3791311-v, accessed 10 November 2008. 562 Ibid. 131

Fig. 12 A Portion of Australia, Bass Strait, Port Western surveyed by Commr. J.L. Stokes, R.N., 1843. London: Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty, 1845. Courtesy of the NLA.

Conclusion

My research into Churchill Island’s history during the first half of the nineteenth century reveals a complexity that sits at odds with prior understandings of the site, particularly with the VCT’s interpretation that it was a site connected with the foundation of Victoria, or a broader settling project. As a place, Churchill Island is somewhat akin to a mirage, here one moment, gone the next. This break in knowledge about the island, and particularly its garden, suggests that the planting of a garden on Churchill Island was not a special moment in Churchill Island’s history, but rather a normative one within a broader history of settlement and exploration in the era between 1788 and 1803. This does not follow that such acts were unimportant, as Lefebvre’s writing suggest that the creation of such symbolic spaces was an important aspect of making colonial space; a way of completing a ritual of taking possession. But what the history of Churchill Island also teaches is that without reinforcement, in this 132 case through the continued circulation of knowledge about these acts, they lost their relevance as symbolic spaces. Lefebvre argues that ‘any “social existence” aspiring or claiming to be “real”, but failing to produce its own kind of space, would be a strange entity…it would fall to the level of folklore and sooner or later disappear altogether’, and in some ways this is what happened with regard to Churchill Island.563 It ceased to be a special place, worthy of romantic prose or landscaping, and for much of its history during the early nineteenth century its identity was virtually forgotten, or at the very least questioned, by cartographers like Wetherall and Faure, who preferred to present the space as an isthmus. While it eventually regained its insular nature in the eyes of the colonial administration and its parent through the work of Stokes, this re-instatement of identity did not result in immediate claim of importance, symbolically, or more practically. As the next chapter will demonstrate, the mid-nineteenth century history of Churchill Island and the broader settlement of Victoria suggest that the planting of a garden and erecting of a blockhouse on Churchill Island was completely unconnected with the establishment of settlement in the Port Phillip District, later Colony of Victoria. Churchill Island’s own settlement, however, was affected by the settlement of Port Phillip: indeed, it was the settlement of Victoria, and the resultant gold rush and its effects that finally made the island once more desirable in the eyes of colonial Europeans.

563 Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 52. 133

Chapter Five: Settling an Island: Western Port Run to Island Home

The original version of this chapter argued that Churchill Island’s first European settlers were the Rogers family, not the Pickersgills, who I relegated to the role of first European occupants and labourers of the Rogers family. That retelling of Churchill Island’s history greatly upset some of the Pickersgill descendants.564 Our subsequent exchanges upheld many of the individual claims I had made, but could not answer Laurie Thompson’s statement that I couldn’t know the nature of the Pickersgill family’s role for sure, due to the general lack of sources relating to the period.565 While my academic peers and mentors sagely nodded their heads and discussed the ‘pitfalls’ of taking on local or family history, I was left feeling I had made a big mistake. In the process of trying to work out what was wrong with my history, my approach to making it, or both, I re-examined this chapter, its arguments and its analysis. In the end, I was grateful to Thompson, whose passionate declaration that I could not know for sure, forced me to reconsider my story of Churchill Island’s settlement and create a more rigorous history in its place.

In the introduction of this thesis I argued that Churchill Island’s settlement was a more contingent, tenuous and complex process than has previously been acknowledged. This chapter explains the initial settlement of Churchill Island: why it occurred, how it was achieved and what this meant. It does so largely because these questions have not been asked in its previous histories—that is, Churchill Island’s settlement was presumed to be part of a natural progression. As the previous chapter demonstrated, however, this interpretation of Churchill Island’s history does not match the available data; indeed, after a brief encounter the island virtually disappeared from the gaze of explorers, colonisers and potential settlers until the 1850s. While previous authors may not have meant to give the impression that Churchill Island’s settlement was a self-sufficient process, with their emphasis on the need and value of homemade items and hard work in the early days of Churchill Island’s settlement, it is difficult not to receive their efforts in this fashion. Yet, as I contend, the

564 Laurie Thompson to E. Rebecca Sanders, Email Correspondence 17 March 2010. Conversation with Christine Grayden, Field Notes, FOCIS meeting 13 November 2010. 565 ‘From the records there are a lot of grey areas, whether I am correct or you are, is lost in the mists of time.’ Laurie Thompson to E. Rebecca Sanders, Email Correspondence 18 March 2010. Cutter has also remarked on the lack of sources relating to Churchill Island. In her Acknowledgments she wrote ‘there was not the quantity of information I had expected.’ Cutter, A Special Place, i. 134 settlement of Churchill Island was very much part of a broader settler colonial project. Although the daily life of Churchill Island’s settlers may appear cut off at first glance, the reality was that they were connected to networks of other settlers, not only in the region of Western Port, but Victoria more broadly, by virtue of their shared endeavours in producing a new settler colonial space. As I will demonstrate, the settlement of Churchill Island, and by extension, the making of a settler colonial space there, required rather more than the efforts of either the Rogers or the Pickersgill families; it also required the efforts of the settler colonial society of which they were part of to prepare, accept, and later approve and safeguard their settlement and its associated effects. By placing Churchill Island’s settlement within a broader historical context, closely examining the available historical sources for small dissonances and examining these factors through the lens of theoretical frameworks about settler colonial space and landscape, this chapter explains why Churchill Island was finally transformed into a settler colonial space in the mid-nineteenth century. In doing so this chapter draws a number of conclusions. First, it contends that Churchill Island’s settlement was not the result of hard work so much as a savvy appreciation for the limits of the law. Secondly, it argues that the ways in which the settlement of Churchill Island was effected encompassed a diverse range of activities, only one of which included home ownership. Third, it refutes the idea of a ‘natural’ settlement of Churchill Island by breaking down its settlement into its separate components, demonstrating the manner in which cognitive, physical and symbolic acts all combined to ensure Churchill Island’s permanent settlement. More generally, I argue that a close examination of Churchill Island’s settlement history provides a useful if unusual model through which it is possible to understand something of the complexity and richness of the settlement process in Victoria specifically, and perhaps other settler colonies more generally. In addition to answering these generally scholarly questions about the nature of Churchill Island’s settlement, this chapter also answers two more specific questions posed by this project’s public stakeholders in light of my research: namely, who settled Churchill Island, and how did they shape Churchill Island’s landscape? This desire for detail and concrete facts, and my (eventual) desire to share authority as well as inquiry with this project’s public stakeholders, has resulted in a chapter that is more, rather than less rigorous in its examination and analysis of Churchill Island’s past. It will also hopefully ensure that this history of Churchill Island, unlike Lewis’s equally scholarly investigation, will be accepted by its public stakeholders, together with all of its arguments about the need to understand Churchill Island’s settlement as part of a broader process of settler colonisation in the Port Phillip District, later the Colony of Victoria. 135

As my arguments above suggest, the making of a settler colonial space at Churchill Island therefore required a number of co-dependent activities, and it is useful to break these down into their separate, if dependent components, to better understand how and why Churchill Island was settled, and what this meant. In previous chapters, I noted that Lefebvre argues that space is produced in three ways: through representations of space, representational spaces and spatial practice, which I take to mean: ideas and their communication; objects or places; and performance, both physical and emotional.566 Lefebvre also argued that ‘Like all social practice, spatial practice is lived directly before it is conceptualised’,567 a statement he later enlarged, arguing that ‘if space is a product, our knowledge of it must be expected to reproduce and expound the process of production’.568 This argument, that reproduction of ideas about space, which are created in response to a prior lived experience, is a useful concept, because it helps to explain how the practice and conceptualisation of settler colonialism prepared the way for the Rogers’s and Pickersgills’ settlement of Churchill Island.

Previous Explanations of Settlement at Churchill Island

If the settlement of Churchill Island was not the natural result of its beauty or excellent growing conditions, as the previous chapter’s explanation of the Churchill Island’s formal possession by the British and its transformation into British colonial space demonstrated, then it is logical to ask why it was settled at all. Both Cutter and Baird, who upheld the Pickersgill family as the island’s first settlers, argued that that Churchill Island was settled because it was vacant, free of charge, and close to where Samuel Pickersgill had served his indenture with Alex McCallum at neighbouring French Island.569 Research conducted for this thesis has proved that this was not an accurate picture, for Churchill Island had in fact been leased by John Rogers since 1854, and its vacancy was therefore contestable, as indeed Lewis argued in his analysis of Churchill Island’s history. Nor, as I will later prove, was the Pickersgills’ presence on Churchill Island likely to have been gratis, although it is highly probable that Pickersgill family’s experience of Western Port was a factor in them choosing to settle on Churchill Island. At the present, Churchill Island functions as a heritage farm, and its current

566 Lefebvre, the Production of Space, 33. 567 Lefebvre, the Production of Space, 34. 568 Ibid., 36. 569 Cutter, A Special Place, 6; Baird, History and Her Story, 26. 136 heritage interpretation and official Statement of Significance have either implied or directly argued that Churchill Island’s importance lies in its strong links between an early history of British exploration and the later settlement of Victoria. The fact that both of Cutter and Baird’s histories of Churchill Island’s settlement begin in 1857 and 1860, respectively, well after the settlement of Melbourne in 1835 is rather curious in light of these claims: if Churchill Island was as desirable a locale as Lieutenant Grant’s published journal would have us believe, then why was it not settled sooner? There is also the question of who settled the island and when, for although Cutter and Baird agree that the Pickersgill family was Churchill Island’s first settlers, their explanations and detailing of that settlement differ.

In his work, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, Gliddon asserted that the settlement of Churchill Island was something of a ‘mystery’, since settler John Rogers was recorded as having interests there in the early 1860s, despite the fact that he ‘did not receive his Crown Grant of Churchill Island until January 15 1866.’570 Gliddon further argued that there were ‘other missing pages in the story…connected to a still earlier occupation’ before describing the Pickersgills’ settlement on Churchill Island.571 Pizzey’s pamphlet produced for the VCT argued that ‘the first known possession of Churchill Island was taken in or around 1857 by an English migrant, Samuel Kirby Pickersgill.’572 Pizzey further argued that the Pickersgill family ‘lived on Churchill Island for at least six years…[but] for some reason Samuel Pickersgill never attempted to acquire possession of Churchill Island, and subsequently lost it to a Cornishman named John Rogers.’573 Drawing on Gliddon and Pizzey’s work, family records and oral tradition, Cutter, argued that

Samuel Pickersgill and his family squatted on Churchill Island about the year 1857…he was advised to select, but refused to do so saying no-one would want to come live there.574

This picture of Churchill Island’s settlement was challenged by Lewis, who completed a heritage assessment of Churchill Island for PINP in 1999. Lewis contended that Churchill Island’s settlement history began much earlier, in 1854, when John Rogers obtained a pastoral licence to depasture stock on the Sandstone Island Run, which Lewis argued

570 Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 196–7. 571 Ibid., 197. 572 Pizzey, Victoria Conservation Trust, 5. 573 Ibid. 574 Cutter, A Special Place, 6. 137

Churchill Island had been part of.575 Lewis’s interpretation of Churchill Island’s early settlement, however, was ignored, and the Pickersgill family is still credited as the island’s first settlers in the local community and in the site’s heritage interpretation to this day. Churchill Island’s second historian Baird, whose work drew not only on pervious histories and their sources, but the work of Pickersgill family historian and genealogist, Thompson, argued that the Pickersgills settled Churchill Island in 1860, during which time Winifred Pickersgill

worked as a cook and a cleaner to get money for the deposit of their island home. When she had enough she sent [her husband] Samuel to Melbourne to secure the island. He returned with the news he had lost it in a card game…John Rogers leased the island in 1866. Having no legal entitlement, [the] Pickersgills were forced to leave.576

As can be seen, each history of Churchill Island has had its own version of how it was settled; they all differ, and not only with regard to the dates. Squatting, leasing, selection, Crown Grant and ordinary purchase have all been proffered as means through which Churchill Island became a site of permanent settlement. As I explained to FOCIS, however, each of these terms has a very specific meaning and some are mutually exclusive,577 and our resultant discussions, together with my earlier field trips to Churchill Island and my observations of the ways in which visitors learned about its history, alerted me to the fact that the reasons why and means through which Churchill Island’s settlement occurred were not well understood by the general public, or the Churchill Island Community more specifically.578 It is useful, therefore, to place the settlement of Churchill Island within its historical context, as it is this information that explains why the island was settled at all.

575 Sheet 714, Run No. 1136 Sandstone Island, Pastoral Run Papers (microfiche), PROV; Miles Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island: Draft (unpublished report for Phillip Island Nature Parks, 1999), 4–8. 576 Baird, History and Her Story, 28. 577 Explanations of these terms and what they mean can be found in the appendix. 578 Field Notes, FOCIS meeting 13 November 2010; Field Notes, FOCIS meeting 28 March 2009; E. Rebecca Sanders, My PhD on Churchill Island: Some Initial Findings for FOCIS, Presentation for FOCIS AGM, 13 August 2011; E. Rebecca Sanders, Not Your Average Settlement Story, Presentation for FOCIS meeting 10 November 2012; Field Notes FOCIS meeting 10 November 2012. 138

Why Settle Churchill Island: Placing an Island in its Historical Context

In 1835, John Batman, other members of the Port Phillip Association and John Pascoe Fawkner followed their Van Diemen’s Land compatriots, the Henty brothers, across Bass Strait and set up pastoral stations on what was still considered the southern coast of New South Wales, and well beyond the ‘limits of location’.579 In the same year, Samuel Anderson set up a farm at Western Port, close to where the town of Bass now stands. In doing so they followed a practice already established to the north of the Murray, where New South Wales colonists, unhappy with their own land situation had also ventured to squat on self-made pastoral runs.580 From the colonial perspective, these men were squatters in the traditional meaning of the word, residing in a place to which they had no official claim, and utilising resources to which they had no sanctioned right in the eyes of British colonial administrations, who as Stephen Roberts notes, had preferred to keep settlement contained because this eased their administrative burden and already overstretched police forces.581 Squatters in the Port Phillip District, however, received official sanction on 14 September 1836, when New South Wales’s Governor, Richard Bourke, ‘authorised the location of Settlers on the vacant Crown Lands adjacent to the shores of Port Phillip’ and appointed Captain William Lonsdale as the settlement’s Police Magistrate.582 In addition to this, Bourke passed legislation designed to control the expansion of squatting, transforming it into licensed pastoralism in the process.583 This new space was called the Port Phillip District, until its formal separation from the Colony of New South Wales in 1850, after which if became the Colony of Victoria.584 In both the Port Phillip District, and the later colony that replaced it, formerly illegal squatters were required to take out a depasturing licence, which gave them a legal right to ‘squat’ on defined parcels of land called runs in the eyes of its settler colonial

579 Geoffrey Blainey, Our Side of the Country (Sydney: Pan Macmillan Publishers Australia, 1991, first published Methuen Haynes, 1984), 17–20. 580 Although as Stephen H. Roberts notes, not all squatters in New South Wales had taken up land beyond the settled districts, some took up land within. The name came about because they had not purchased or leased it from the colonial government, but simply ‘squatted’ in the original sense of that term. Stephen H. Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, 1835–1847 (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1935, reprinted with corrections 1964, reprinted 1970, 1975), 54–5; Garden, Victoria: A History, 22. 581 Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, 50–1, 55. 582 NSWGG no. 239, 14 September 1836, 709. 583 Ibid. 584 At first, the newly proclaimed Port Phillip District was at first comprised only of the lands south of ‘the main range, between the Rivers Ovens and Goulburn, and adjacent to Port Phillip’, but later stretched to encompass most of what is now known as Victoria. NSWGG no. 418, 22 May 1839, 605; no. 418, 22 May 1839, 605; no. 39, 1 July 1840, 619. 139 administration.585 Squatters—for the name stuck despite their transformation into legal tenants under settler colonial law—were quick to take advantage of the new economic opportunities being presented to them through this authorised use of space, and the overlanders quickly joined the Van Diemonians, reaching what is now known as Gippsland and spreading throughout what became Victoria.586 In 1846 Britain officially recognised these settlements, and the resultant Orders in Council that followed in the Colony of New South Wales in 1847 not only placed greater regulation on the leasing of land, but also acknowledged squatters’ desires to protect their investments through the purchase of land.587All of which, as PINP Curator Grayden noted, makes settlement sound like a peaceful process.588

In Possession, Bain Attwood notes that as members of the Port Phillip Association ‘encroached more and more on the Kulin people’s territories conflict was bound to increase’ between settler colonists and Indigenous peoples.589 In July 1836, the killing of a colonist called Franks by the Boon Wurrung near Werribee resulted in retaliatory killings by colonists of Boon Wurrung people.590 Earlier massacres relating the killing of Boon Wurrung in Western Port, as well as Indigenous peoples in the Port Phillip area are recorded in the pages of the New South Wales Government Gazette (hereafter NSWGG).591 Legalisation of pastoralism by the settler colonial government did not alter this pattern of violence. Writing on the progress of the Port Phillip and New England pastoralists further into the interior, Roberts has argued that ‘scarcely a party got through without news of native—outrages in both these directions; and, on the reverse side, rumours of atrocities by squatting parties trickled in with disturbing frequency.’592 In response to British concerns about the treatment of Indigenous peoples in these colonies Protectors were appointed in 1838, but they faced great difficulty in carrying out their mandate of protection, which also included a ‘civilising’

585 That is Governor Bourke’s Bill to restrain the Unauthorised Occupation of Crown Lands. In Robert’s words ‘Any reputable person was to be allowed to take out a licence which, for £10 a year, authorised him to graze stock over as much land as he pleased.’ Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, 74, 78, 79. 586 Collett, Wednesdays Closest to the Full Moon, 32–3; Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, 67–9. 587 Waterhouse, The Vision Splendid, 22. 588 Grayden, Comments by Christine Grayden on Rebecca’s CI Thesis, 3; Field Notes, FOCIS meeting, Churchill Island, 14 February, 2015. 589 Attwood and Doyle, Possession, 66. 590 Ibid. 591 NSWGG no. 222, 18 May 1836, 395. 592 Roberts, The Squatting Age in Australia, 87. 140 mission and religious conversion.593 Reports of massacres continued. In April, 1839 Assistant Protector Thomas’s Diaries noted that ‘two blacks had been killed near the Mount Julian Range’ in the Geelong District, going on to quote from the Protector given oversight for that region.

[A]weful state of society towards the Aborigines in the interior district. Sixteen stations did I visit and at but one…did I find a philanthropic feeling and regard for them. At two out of the 16 I found skulls of Aborigines placed over the doors of the huts as if to warn the lawful owners of the land at their peril to approach.594

Veracini’s argument that the later ‘peaceful’ settlement enjoyed by many settler colonists were based, and in fact made possible by earlier acts of violence, is thus amply supported by the facts. But Indigenous dispossession was achieved through more than violence or being pushed off their lands by squatters on a case by case basis. In 1840 the colonial government declared that reserves were to be set aside, and Indigenous peoples were to be encouraged to move onto them.595 Assistant Protector for the Western Port District, William Thomas, accordingly moved his basis of operations from Tuerong to Narre Warren in September 1840 and encouraged Boon Wurrung people to follow him.596 Gliddon’s history of Phillip Island records a reference to the fact that not all Indigenous peoples moved onto these reserves, some, like the couple reputed to have worked for Phillip Island Squatter John McHaffie, became pastoral hands and labourers.597According to McHaffie’s daughter, Peter and Eliza lived on Phillip Island in a mia-mia behind ‘the small lagoon in the lee of the sand hummocks’ and ‘were employed by [McHaffie] for many years.598 The result of all of which was that the Boon Wurrung’s traditional way of life was destroyed by settlement, and their lands confiscated. As processes, settlement and dispossession were the separate sides of the same coin.

593 Richard Cotter, A Cloud of Hapless Foreboding: Assistant Protector William Thomas and the Port Phillip Aborigines, 1839–1840 (Sorrento: Nepean historical Society, 2005), 1–4. 594 Extract of the Diaries of William Thomas referring to report made by Assistant Protector Charles Sievewright, April, 1839 in Ibid., 13–14. 595 Ibid., 2. 596 Ibid. 597 Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 169. 598 Ibid. 141

John Rogers and the Sandstone Island Pastoral Run

It was during this era of pastoral expansion and resultant Indigenous dispossession that John Rogers, a farm overseer by calling, arrived in Sydney in 1838 aboard the Florentina.599 Cole writes that Rogers was lured from Cornwall by his brother, Richard Rogers, and his experience in the colony of New South Wales, although not from his letters, which had counselled his brother against migrating too soon.600 In May 1841, John Rogers visited the Port Phillip District as part of an exploratory party which journeyed to Port Albert under the leadership of Charles Manton.601 Although the expedition was a disaster, John Rogers seems to have been pleased with the countryside, and Rogers took up farming at Yallock Creek (present day Koo-wee-rup) for the remainder of the 1840s.602 During the early 1850s, family history reports that like many Victorians, he was swept up by gold fever and travelled to Bendigo to take part in the gold rush there.603 After only a short period, however, he journeyed to Sydney and New Zealand, before finally returning to Western Port to take up a position as overseer on Martha King’s pastoral run, Bunguyan. Not long afterwards, John Rogers subsequently took out a licence for the pastoral run in his own right in 1854. Why Rogers decided to give up the hunt for gold and return to his original occupation as a farmer is difficult to know with certainty, but his reasons for taking up a pastoral run of Sandstone Island were probably more straightforward. His decision to take out a depasturing licence was dictated by a desire to strike out on his own, and the nature of Victorian settler colonial society and its relationship with land in the 1850s, at which point it was not yet possible purchase land beyond the so called ‘settled districts’.

While the gold rushes are rightly considered the defining feature of Victorian life during the 1850s, the issues surrounding the nature of life on the goldfields sometimes obscures some of the other issues that such a large influx of immigrants brought to the colony to those unfamiliar with Victoria’s post-gold history, one of which was the scarcity of land available to new settlers. New immigrants campaigned to ‘unlock the lands’ from squatters

599 Alexander Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Past and Present, Volume 2A: The Colony and Its People (Melbourne: McCarron, Bird & Co., 1888), 383. 600 Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 12.Victoria and Its Metropolis note the location of Rogers’s birth place more exactly as Helston, Cornwall. Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Volume 2A, 383. 601 Ibid. 602 Ibid. 603 Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Volume 2A, 383; Cutter, A Special Place, 11. 142 beyond the so-called settled districts,604 who as Ham’s Squatting Map of 1851 demonstrates, controlled much of Victoria’s land. Indeed, in the Western Port District in which Churchill Island was located, only two small portions were allotted to Indigenous use, one being the site of the Native Police Barracks, and the other being the Protector’s station.605 The lines of demarcation on Ham’s Squatting Map enclosed space that were supposed to be sites of various temporary squatting runs, but this representation is rather less convincing once the viewer considers Lefebvre’s injunctions about lived experience preceding cognitive representations, as well as the fact that Ham produced maps showing the extent of squatting for the Port Phillip District and later Colony of Victoria from 1847 to 1861.606 Indeed, the 1847 Order in Council had acknowledged the truth of this lived experience in law, granting squatters the ability to take out what was known as a pre-emptive right: squatters who had held the lease of the pastoral run were granted the right to purchase up to 640 acres on their run to secure the ‘improvements’ they had made, and protect them against the claims of future settlers.607 In the process, squatters became settlers in their own right, paving the way, as I shall demonstrate, for both the Rogers and the Pickersgill families to settle Churchill Island.

604 Lionel Frost, ‘Across the Great Divide: The Economy of the Inland Corridor’, in Beyond the Black Stump, 63. 605 The Native Police Barracks was assigned the number 161, and the Protectorate Reserve, 111 for the 1851 Map. Thomas Ham, Key to Ham’s Map of the Squatting District of Victoria (Melbourne: Thomas Ham, 1851), 4-5. Available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-f895-s5-v and http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-f895-s6-v, accessed 16 May 2009. 606 Ian F. McLaren, ‘Ham, Thomas (1821–1870’, Australian Dictionary of Biography (Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published in hardcopy 1972) available at http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/ham-thomas-3700/text5799, accessed 13 November 2014. 607 Roberts, The Squatting Age, 240; Waterhouse, The Vision Splendid, 22. 143

Fig. 13 Thomas Ham, Ham’s Squatting Map of Victoria (Port Phillip District, New South Wales): Carefully Corrected to this Date from the Colonial Government Surveys, Crown Lands, Commissioners, Explorers Maps, Private Surveys & c. (Melbourne, Thomas Ham, 1851). Courtesy of the NLA.

Fig. 14 Detail of Ham’s Squatting Map 1851. Each number indicates a squatting run, and by 1851 there were 200 in the Western Port District alone. 144

In Pioneers and Preachers, Cole remarked that John Rogers was ‘quite a pioneer of the “small islands” of Western Port’, noting that ‘at various stages, Sandstone, Elizabeth and Churchill Islands were within Rogers’s care’.608 Cole seems to have been unaware as to why one island ‘alone’ was not sufficient for Rogers’s needs.609 Lewis, however, drawing on Cutter’s research for her history of Churchill Island, asserted that Churchill Island must have formed part of the Sandstone Island Run, and therefore originally belonged to the Bunguyan Run, leased by one Victoria’s few female pastoralists, Martha King.610 Lewis based his assessment on the Sandstone Island pastoral run file, which contains communication from its licensee, John Rogers, who applied for the pre-emptive right to Sandstone Island in 1854.611 In his correspondence, Rogers makes reference to operating two islands in addition to Sandstone: Churchill Island and Elizabeth Island. Stock assessments for the years 1854 and 1855 are also included in the file, and these list the stock depastured on Sandstone and Elizabeth Islands, note that no stock were depastured on Churchill Island in 1854, and omit reference to Churchill Island entirely in 1855.612 This evidence is corroborated by the Victorian Government Gazette (hereafter VGG), which published both licence fees and stock assessments from 1854 until 1863, and as such usefully fills in the gaps in the Sandstone Island Run file, which ends after 1856.613 My analysis of the VGG reveals that Churchill Island was either included as part of the Sandstone Island Run, or as part of the Elizabeth Island run prior to 1860, both of which were leased by Rogers as can be seen from the Table 3 below.614

608 Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 17–18. 609 Ibid. 610 Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, 3–6; Cutter, A Special Place, 11. 611 In which he appears to have been unsuccessful. Sheet 714, Run No. 1136 Sandstone Island, Pastoral Run Papers (microfiche), PROV. 612 Ibid. 613 Prior to 1854, the VGG only published the names of licensees and the squatting districts to which they belonged. After 1863 it published the new system of fees based on stocking capabilities, rather than actual stocking rates and a separate licence fee. VGG 1849–1866; Sheet 714, Run No. 1136 Sandstone Island, Pastoral Run Papers (microfiche), PROV. 614 Elizabeth Island’s licence fees suggest it was separated to form its own pastoral run in 1855. Interestingly in 1854 the Gazette records the run Rogers obtains the Licence for as Elizabeth Island, but makes no mention of a licence for Sandstone Island, although stock assessment is completed for both islands. VGG no. 13, 14 February 1854, 415; no. 78, 25 August 1854, 1902; no. 26, 23 March 1855, 767. 145

Table 3 Runs Licensed to John Rogers published in the Victorian Government Gazette

Year Name of Run Estimated Size by Rogers Actual Size of Island

1858 Elizabeth Island 230 Acres 66 Acres (Elizabeth)

Sandstone Island 40 Acres 44 Acres (Sandstone)

1859 Sandstone Island 210 Acres 44 Acres (Sandstone)

1861 Sandstone and 180 Acres for both islands 44 Acres (Sandstone) Churchill Islands 140 Acres (Churchill)

By comparing the information supplied by Rogers on the size of his runs in 1858, 1859 and 1861 with the actual size of each island, it is clear that Churchill Island was included in the assessment of Elizabeth Island in 1858, and the Sandstone Island run in 1859.615 As Rogers gave up the Elizabeth Island Run in 1859 (John Chalmers took it up),616 I argue it would be incorrect to presume that Churchill Island formed part of the Elizabeth Island Run in any formal sense, but rather continued to form part of the original Sandstone Run until its own separation in 1860.617 Lewis’s assessment that Churchill Island formed part of the Sandstone Island Run was thus correct, if somewhat simplified. Lewis’s further argument that Churchill Island originally formed part of the Bunguyan Run taken out by Martha King in 1845 is also possible; although it does not appear in John King’s description of his mother’s run in the formal application made for its lease in 1850,618 it was not unheard of to expand the boundaries of a run at a later date, as Barry Collett notes.619

615 Rogers did not estimate the number of acres in his 1860 stock assessment return. VGG no. 55, 29 April 1858, 823; no. 83, 31 May 1859, 1127; no. 68, 29 May 1860, 1037; no. 85, 31 May 1861, 1050. 616 VGG no. 83, 31 May 1859, 1127. 617 Rogers was charged separate license fees for Churchill Island from 1860, and reported separate stock assessments for both Churchill and Sandstone Island in both 1860 and 1862. In 1861, both islands are recorded as belonging to Rogers, who like many multiple licence holders, declined to itemise his stock assessment fees for each run. VGG no. 6, 10 January 1860, 57; no. 68, 29 May 1860, 1037; no. 28, 22 February 1861, 396; no. 85, 31 May 1861, 1050; no. 4, 13 January 1862, 66; no. 61, 19 May 1862, 864; no. 87, 28 August 1863, 1897; no. 125, 14 December 1863, 2808; no. 59, 10 June 1864, 1255; no. 132, 28 December 1864, 2947; no. 61, 6 June 1865, 1264; no. 180, 7 December 1865, 2849. 618 Cole, Western Port: Pioneers and Preachers, 6. 619 Collett notes that John McHaffie, originally the squatter on Phillip Island, enlarged the Yanakie Run in Gippsland when he took it over in 1869. Cutter also asserted that the Sandstone Island Run was annexed from 146

The fact that the Sandstone Island run was separated from the Bunguyan run suggests that Rogers’s previous experience in the Western Port District was not his only motive for choosing to take out the Sandstone Island Run in particular, especially since it might have been possible to acquire a larger run elsewhere. Although Rogers’s experience as an overseer at Bunguyan would have been useful, I argue that his family connection to the Kings through his brother Richard’s marriage to Martha King’s youngest daughter, Sarah Birch King, would probably have been the deciding factor.620 Work completed on the usefulness and importance of family networks for successful settlement has proved that family support greatly improved settlers’ success.621 Family networks, which can be defined as a utility of family connections created through blood or marriage, offered not only an easier means of obtaining loans, whether monetary or in kind during periods of hardship, expansion or start-ups, but just as importantly provided emotional and psychological support that made it easier for settlers to stay when things did not go according to plan. John Rogers’s experience in the colony, which dated back to its Port Phillip days, had probably demonstrated to him the usefulness of such networks. This being the case it seems likely John Rogers chose to take out a pastoral run at Sandstone Island just across from his brother’s parents-in-law and former employers because he would be able to enjoy their support in his endeavours. It is also possible, as the evidence below suggests, that the separation of the Sandstone Island Run, and possible incorporation of Churchill and Elizabeth islands into that run, was negotiated in person between John Rogers and the King family on the basis of these connections, rather than through some more bureaucratic process.

The Devil is in the Details: Who Settled Churchill Island and How

In his heritage assessment, Lewis argued the evidence within the run file implied that John Rogers and not the Pickersgills should be viewed as Churchill Island’s first settler. Drawing on Gliddon’s work, Lewis argued that the Pickersgills must have been Rogers’s servants, the Bunguyan Run in 1854, but as she did not state why, it is difficult to know if this was supposition, or drawn from local memory. Collett, Wednesdays Closest to the Full Moon, 53; Cutter, A Special Place, 11. 620 Cutter, A Special Place, 11. For information on the importance of family networks see Jane Beer, Charles Fahey, Patricia Grimshaw and Melanie Raymond, eds., Colonial Frontiers and Family Fortunes: Two Studies of Rural and Urban Victoria (Melbourne: The History Department, The University of Melbourne, 1989), 50–1, 65,70. 621 Minchinton, ‘That Place’: Nineteenth Century Land Selection in the Otways, Victoria, Australia PhD Thesis University of Melbourne, 2001, 109, 124–5, 325. See also Warwick Eunson, Unfolding Hills: Mirboo Pioneers of the Gippsland Forests, 1878–1914 (Mirboo North: Mirboo Shire Council, 1978). 147 believing that their family history of settling on Churchill Island in their own right must have been incorrect.622 Since Rogers’s leasing of Churchill Island, either in its own right, or as part of another island run, overlaps with both dates posited for the Pickersgills’ occupation of Churchill Island (1857 or 1860) by either Cutter or Baird,623 this information appeared to support Gliddon and Lewis’s arguments that the Pickersgills must have been Rogers’s servants and labourers, rather than ‘settlers’ in their own right. Rogers’s precise use of Churchill Island prior to 1860, when the island became a pastoral run in its own right, however, is difficult to know with any certainty, as I was reminded by Pickersgill family historian and genealogist, Thompson. As a result of my correspondence with Thompson, I decided that I should reconsider this argument, in part because of Thompson’s vehemence, but also because it was possible that the oral records upon which Cutter and Baird had based their histories might have contained some ‘truth’ not apparent within official written records. This dissonance encouraged me to utilise microstoria to see if there was a way to reconcile these two very different pictures of Churchill Island’s settlement.

When I re-examined Rogers’s pastoral returns recorded in the VGG I realised that these records were in fact an excellent example of exceptional normal. The most striking of these small abnormalities is Rogers’s decision to record ‘rabbits’ under each heading for the number of sheep, cattle and horse depastured in 1858 and 1859. It was more usual to post a blank under the stock headings if no stock had been depastured that year. My reading of the VGG confirms that Rogers was the only licensee who engaged in this bizarre practice during the years 1855–65.624 Why then, did Rogers post these truly singular returns? Bearing in mind Ginzburg’s arguments about ‘improbable documentation’ being ‘potentially richer’,625 it also seemed worthwhile examining Rogers’s disinclination to provide precise run assessments, which he achieved by either moving Churchill Island between the runs of Sandstone and Elizabeth Islands, or by posting a joint return. While these actions could be

622 Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story; Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island: Draft, 3–6. 623 Rooth Gooch also uses a family history source to present the Pickersgills as Churchill Island’s first settlers. Cutter, A Special Place, 6; Baird, History and Her Story, 25; Gooch, Frontier French Island, 28. 624 VGG no. 13, 14 February 1854, 415; no. 78, 25 August 1854, 1902; no. 26, 23 March 1855, 767; no. 55, 29 April 1858, 823; no. 83, 31 May 1859, 1127; no. 6, 10 January 1860, 57; no. 68, 29 May 1860, 1037; no. 28, 22 February 1861, 396; no. 85, 31 May 1861, 1050; no. 4, 13 January 1862, 66; no. 61, 19 May 1862, 864; no. 87, 28 August 1863, 1897; no. 125, 14 December 1863, 2808; no. 59, 10 June 1864, 1255; no. 132, 28 December 1864, 2947; no. 61, 6 June 1865, 1264; no. 180, 7 December 1865, 2849. 625 Ginzburg, ‘Microhistory’, 33. 148 presumed to be the actions of man who had little energy to waste on bureaucratic matters, which at first tallies with the bluff and practical personality recorded in local mythology,626 this does not accord with Rogers’s efforts to obtain a pre-emptive right to Sandstone Island only a year after he had obtained its lease.627 As Levi’s injunction that even the smallest dissonances can potentially have a greater import than at first surmised argues,628 I contend that a close examination of the oddities within Churchill Island’s historical records suggests we should ask just what was Rogers really doing at Churchill Island: specifically, how do Rogers’s activities relate to the Pickersgills’ claims to be the island’s first settlers in spite of a written record suggesting otherwise, and what does this example tell us about the settlement process more generally? While the first two questions have been explored by other authors, they have been content to let the two competing claims sit side by side, in the case of Gliddon, or in Cutter and Baird’s histories, as separate eras of Churchill Island’s past. Answering questions regarding the Rogers and Pickersgills’ relationship with each other as settlers, however, sheds much light on the ways in which settlers took advantage of existing settler colonial legislation and its poor policing and enforcement to deal with land shortages.

Since there is little information relating to Churchill Island’s use prior to 1860, when the island became a pastoral run in its own right, it is difficult to know how extensively Rogers used the island, if at all. Western Port Historian, Cole, argued that Churchill Island did not serve as Rogers’s home, which he instead made on Sandstone Island, until 1863.629 As noted above, the Sandstone Island Run File records that he did not depasture any stock on Churchill Island in 1854, and the blank space in the 1855 entry suggests this remained the case for that year also.630 Rogers’s returns for Elizabeth and Sandstone Island’s during this era are suggestive that while Rogers may have initially depastured stock on his island

626 During one of his potato harvests, one of Rogers’s two helpers are recorded as asking him at the end of a long day’s work ‘Well, boss, what about called it a day’ to which Rogers is remembered replying ‘what ee talking about lad—ain’t you goin’ to bag ‘em up?’ Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 198. 627 Like all pastoral licensees, Rogers’s was protected by the 1847 Order in Council until their land was declared open for settlement. This piece of legislation allowed pastoral lessees who had held a piece of land as tenants for fourteen years to apply for a pre-emptive right, and purchase a 640 acre block of land to secure their ‘improvements’, which usually included a homestead with outbuildings close by. In practice, the amount of time was usually shortened, though not to one year as Rogers clearly hoped. Sheet 714, Run No. 1136 Sandstone Island, Pastoral Run Papers (microfiche), PROV. 628 Levi’s claim that ‘even the smallest dissonances [can] prove to be indicators of meaning that can potentially assume general dimensions’ is also appropriate advice here. Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, 109. 629 Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 12. 630 Sheet 714, Run No. 1136 Sandstone Island, Pastoral Run Papers (microfiche), PROV. 149 holdings, this had largely ceased by 1857.631 In 1858 and 59, as noted above, he returned ‘rabbits’ under the stock assessment headings of horses, cattle and sheep, and his obituary suggest this return was a truthful one, and that Rogers was running a rabbit run.632 In 1860, the year Churchill Island became a run in its own right, Rogers paid six shillings for the depasturing of a solitary horse on Sandstone Island, and returned blank spaces for his use of Churchill Island in his stock assessments.633 Rogers’s combined stock assessments for Sandstone and Churchill Island in 1861, and his 1862 stock assessment record that two of the three cows from the 1861 assessment were depastured on Churchill Island in 1862, suggesting that a similar arrangement may have taken place the previous year.634 During these years however, Rogers continued to pay his licence fees, which at £10 per run per annum until the beginning of 1862, was a lot of money to leave land largely unused. Indeed, each time Rogers’s runs had been separated, he had ended up paying another licence fee of £10, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why he had chosen to give up Elizabeth Island, the smallest of the three, in 1859. In 1862, however, Rogers’s fortunes improved as a result of the Duffy Land Act, when pastoralists ceased to pay a separate licence fee and stock assessment on an annual basis, and instead began paying according to their run’s carrying capacity on a twice yearly basis.635 In 1862, therefore, Rogers only payed £2, 10s in two yearly instalments for the privilege of depasturing stock on Churchill Island.636 Considering the cost of leasing his various island runs prior to 1862, it is surprising that Rogers did not choose to depasture larger numbers of stock on Churchill Island. That is, until one realises that a depasturing licence was essentially a type of lease, and that tenants do not always behave in the manner their landlords might approve or desire.

631 In 1854 he depastured forty sheep Sandstone Island and thirty sheep on Elizabeth Island, in 1855, he depastured one horse and thirty-five sheep on Sandstone Island and one hundred and forty sheep on Elizabeth Island, and in 1856 he depastured fifty sheep on Sandstone Island only. In 1857, Rogers posted blank spaces, and no fees as owing on his stock assessment. VGG no. 78, 25 August 1854, 1902; no. 16, 16 February 1855, 425; no. 47, 29 April 1856, 746. 632 VGG no. 55, 29 April 1858, 823; no. 29, 29 October 1858, 2156; no. 83, 31 May 1859, 1129. ‘Death of Mr. John Rogers’ Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate, 3 January 1893, p. 4. 633 VGG no. 68, 31 May 1860, 1037. 634 In 1861 Rogers records three cows, in addition to two horses being depastured on his island runs. VGG no. 85, 31 May 1861, 1050; no. 61, 16 May 1862, 864. 635 The rent for Sandstone Island, which occupied a considerably smaller area of land, dropped from £10 to £2 per annum. VGG no. 87, 28 August 1863, 1897; no. 125, 14 December 1863, 2808. 636 Ibid. 150

A Certain Disregard for the Rules

As a pastoral licensee, Rogers was entitled to depasture his land, but he was not allowed to farm it for agricultural purposes beyond what he needed for himself, or somewhat more nebulously, what could be sold locally.637 Nor was he allowed to cut timber in commercial quantities, or indeed engage in any activity that did not constitute the primary purpose of his licence; that is the depasturing of stock.638 Numerous squatters, however, did use their pastoral runs for a host of commercial purposes that had little to do with agisting sheep, cattle or horses. Indeed, in 1855, squatters were repeatedly cautioned in the pages of the VGG against the ‘Cultivation of Crown Lands’, as all leased pastoral runs remained.639 This was precisely what Rogers did.640 In October 1861 his shadowy agricultural use of Churchill, Sandstone and Elizabeth Islands came to the attention of MLA for South Bourke, Dr Louis Laurence Smith.641 During debates amongst members of Victoria’s Legislative Assembly in October of that year, Smith repeatedly brought up the subject of Rogers’s cultivation of three islands as evidence of Phillip Island’s productive soils during debates regarding the new Occupation of Crown Lands for Residence and Cultivation Licences Act, which had been brought into effect in May.642 Later records demonstrate that not only was John Rogers growing large quantities of food on Churchill Island, much larger than could be sold locally

637 Dr Louis Laurence Smith, then the MLA for South Bourke (Gliddon incorrectly ascribes Smith to Mornington at this point, he later held the seat of Mornington from 1886–94) clearly outlines the conditions of licensees in his parliamentary debates. Victorian Parliamentary Hansard 29 October 1861, in Gliddon, Phillip Island, 193. See also Guy Featherston, ‘Louis Laurence Smith’ in Australian Dictionary of BiographyNational Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/smith-louis-lawrence- 4610/text7585, published in hardcopy 1976, accessed online 10 October 2011. 638 Collett also notes the Wilson’s Promontory runs of Mt Hunter, Mt Oberon, Sealers Cove and Darby River, held by Robert Turnbull, were probably used for timber getting and quarrying rather than depasturing. Collett, Wednesdays Closest to the Full Moon, 53; VGG no.15, 13 February 1855, 373. 639 VGG no. 10, 30 January 1855, 265; no. 15, 13 February 1855, 373. 640 In History and Her Story Baird implied that this activity was illegal once Rogers had purchased, but this is incorrect. It was only illegal whilst Rogers was Churchill Island’s licenced squatter. Baird, History and Her Story, 36. It should be noted that a separate licence could be obtained for the ‘Occupation of Crown Lands for Residence and Cultivation Licences’ as of 23 May, 1861, but as Rogers did not have this kind of licence, but instead had a pastoral lease, this option was not legally open to him. VGG no. 101, 8 July 1861, 1309; no. 117, 2 August 1861, 1469; no. 163, 8 November 1861, 2151. 641 ‘Churchill, Sandstone and Philip’s [sic] Island s’ Victorian Hansard, Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 24 October 1861, p. 199; Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 29 October 1861, p. 213. 642 VGG no. 101, 8 July 1861, 1309; no. 117, 2 August 1861, 1469; no. 163, 8 November 1861, 2151; ‘Churchill, Sandstone and Philip’s [sic] Island s’ Victorian Hansard, Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 24 October 1861, p. 199; Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 29 October 1861, p. 213. Gliddon argues that this debate refers to selection, but this is incorrect. Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 192–3, from Hansard debate in L.A. October 1861. 151 under the terms of his lease agreement, he continued to do so even after his outing by Smith in the Victorian Parliament.643 Nor was Rogers alone in this practice. Just across the bay, the Anderson brothers had been farming their plot of land at Bass since 1835, prior to the transformation of squatting into licenced pastoralism, and continued to do so even after the land their farm was on was transferred to another pastoral licensee, David Power in 1845, largely because Power was an absentee licensee.644 In 1846, however, the remainder of their original run, which included their house and orchard was leased by William and John Gairdner, and the Anderson brothers and their partner Massie were left without legal tenure.645 This suggests that the colonial government found it very difficult to enforce their strictures about the manner in which pastoral runs ought to be used, even when abuses of the pastoral system known and publicly debated in parliament. While the Anderson brothers were eventually removed from their run because they had ceased to pay for their depasturing licence,646 Rogers remained the lessee of his various island runs because he assiduously declared and paid his licence and stocking fees, borne out by his decision to record ‘rabbits’.647

The difficulty the colonial government had in regulating the use of crown land leased under pastoral licences was not the purpose of Smith’s arguments in parliament, but it is well

643 On 5 July 1864, Georgiana McHaffie, wife to John Davis McHaffie and squatter of Phillip Island, recorded in her diary that her husband had brought a Mrs Lee and a ton of potatoes from Churchill Island on that day. The following year a similar entry was written by McHaffie on 26 of April, recording: ‘Master came, bringing half a ton of potatoes from Churchill Island in boat’. Georgiana McHaffie, Diary, 5 July 1864, 26 April 1865, Transcript held by PIDHS. 644 It is entirely possible that the Anderson brothers served as a model for Rogers to copy from, although references to Rogers farming in Yallock and his background as a farm overseer may also have suggested cultivating his island runs. Horton and Morris also note that Bailey and King also farmed the south side of Bass River near Bass Landing ‘following the example of [Samuel] Anderson and [Robert] Massie in growing crops. In July, 1841, they were granted a pastoral licence, but made no attempt to raise cattle or sheep.’ Horton and Morris, The Andersons of Western Port, 71–2, 91–2. 645 Ibid., 91. 646 The Anderson brothers’ adherence to cultivation rather than pastoralism appears to have suggested this course of action to them as a money saving device. According to Horton and Morris, ‘Samuel Anderson could not tolerate paying a 10 annual fee, when he owned no cattle to despasture.’ Horton and Morris, Ibid., 91–3. 647 Horton and Morris have suggest that Western Port’s Commissioner of Lands, F.A. Powlett ‘was not one who took his duties lightly…he was most diligent, frequently inspecting the many runs in his area…Dilatory stockholders two or more weeks late with their returns, or giving false declarations, were quickly fined 5’ or more, for each offence.’ Ibid., 91. VGG no. 6, 10 January 1860, 57; no. 68, 29 May 1860, 1037; no. 28, 22 February 1861, 396; no. 85, 31 May 1861, 1050; no. 4, 13 January 1862, 66; no. 61, 19 May 1862, 864; no. 87, 28 August 1863, 1897; no. 125, 14 December 1863, 2808; no. 59, 10 June 1864, 1255; no. 132, 28 December 1864, 2947; no. 61, 6 June 1865, 1264; no. 180, 7 December 1865, 2849. 152 documented within them.648 Perhaps more amazingly, it is also documented in a mortgage record between John Rogers and Edward Lintott, completed with the apparent cooperation of the Colony’s legal fraternity under the under the auspices of the Supreme Court of Colony of Victoria. The 1856 Memorialising Indenture, as Cutter refers to it, records Edward Lintott paying John Rogers £140 for the ‘implements and the chattels and effects on Sandstone, Elizabeth and Churchill Islands…and all the rights, title, interest of him the said John Rogers of in and to the same islands and all improvements thereon’.649 What is particularly remarkable is that the mortgage clearly states that Rogers not only used his chattels and effects as leverage, but also his ‘rights, title [and] interest’ of the three islands he was leasing at that time. Rogers’s decidedly odd decision to officially document his contravention of his lease agreement provides yet another example of Rogers’s disregard for legal nicety.

Such ‘exceptional normal’ documentation, whilst not providing any direct connection with the Pickersgill family, suggests a way by which the Pickersgills might have settled on Churchill Island not as Rogers’s servants, but as his tenants. Smith’s parliamentary debates provide further support for this argument. In his speeches to the Legislative Assembly, Smith argued that Rogers had ‘sold the goodwill of one of them [i.e. an island] to another person for £300, while he offered to accept a similar sum for the goodwill of another’.650 Just which of the three islands Rogers had sold the goodwill of is difficult to ascertain. Smith mentions Churchill, Sandstone and Phillip Islands as all being farmed to some extent by Rogers in the 1861 parliamentary debates, but does not provide further clarity as to which islands had been ‘sold’ and which had been offered for sale.651 It is equally difficult to know if Smith was referring to the deal struck between Lintott and Rogers in this debate, or if Rogers had since contracted a new arrangement with an unknown party, suggested, but not confirmed by Smith’s impression that the islands had been offered on an individual basis, and by the discrepancies in the amounts.652 If this were the case, then it is possible that the deal that had

648 ‘Churchill, Sandstone and Philip’s [sic] Island s’ Victorian Hansard, Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 24 October 1861, p. 199; Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 29 October 1861, p. 213. 649 Reproduced in Cutter, A Special Place, inside cover piece 4. 650 ‘Churchill, Sandstone and Philip’s [sic] Island s’ Victorian Hansard, Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 24 October 1861, p. 199; Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 29 October 1861, p. 213. 651 Smith’s arguments that Rogers was in the ‘habit of cultivating the third island, and of sending a great deal of produce to market,’ could possibly refer to Churchill Island, but they are just as likely to apply to Phillip Island. Ibid. 652 It is also possible that Smith’s facts were incorrect in the detail, though not, it appears in the spirit. 153 been struck was with the Pickersgills, but my analysis of Pickersgill family history suggests that it was the second, unfinished deal that may prove a better fit.

A Plausible Explanation

The Pickersgill family history is not well documented; only fragments exist in written records, and there are a number of family stories that have been passed down. These stories include their occupation of Churchill Island. Gliddon, who was in a position to interview a surviving son of Samuel and Winifred Pickersgill, recounted Samuel Jabez Pickersgill’s words in his Phillip Island: In Picture and Story:

My father Samuel Kirby Pickersgill just squatted on Churchill Island about the year 1857, at the age of 31. He was advised to select it, but refused to do so, saying no one would want to live there.653

This story is repeated in Samuel Jabez Pickersgill’s notes, typed and placed online by Thompson.654 Architectural historian Lewis also argued that the Pickersgills arrived on Churchill Island in 1857, due to his belief that Samuel Pickersgill only worked for McCallum on French Island for a single year.655 Thompson’s own research, used by Baird in her history of Churchill Island, however, offers a different narrative. In Thompson’s version, based on his research into family birth certificates and a copy of Samuel Kirby Pickersgill’s indenture form, the Pickersgill family did not reach Churchill Island until 1860, after Samuel’s indenture was finalised on 6 June that year,656 and remained there until 1865, when oral family lore has it that Samuel lost the money his wife Winifred had carefully saved to purchase their island home in a card game.657 Alessandro Portelli’s arguments, that the value of oral records lies less in their capacity to reliably record detail than in their ability to convey

653 Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 197. 654 ‘My parents, after “two” years (actually six years) at Churchill Island, having failed to acquire the right of occupying same, had lost their home to a Mr. Rodgers. My father was advised several times to select but he would not bother about it.’ Brackets indicates editorial comments by Thompson. Laurie Thompson, ed., ‘Samuel Jabez Pickergill: from his handwritten notes’, Port Phillip Pioneers Group, http://www.portphillippioneersgroup.org.au/pppg5da.htm, accessed 12 May 2013. 655 Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island: Draft, 5. 656 Baird, History and Her Story, 26; Thompson, NEALPOF8.Doc, 16. 657 Laurie Thompson, ed., ‘Winifred Jane Nealis’, Port Phillip Pioneers Group, http://www.portphillippioneersgroup.org.au/pppg5by.htm, accessed 12 May 2013; Baird, History and Her Story, 28. 154

‘meaning’, suggests that the birth records of the Pickersgill children may offer a more reliable guide to the Pickersgill’s tenure on Churchill Island than Samuel Jabez’s memory.658 According to these records, the Pickersgills lived on Churchill Island sometime between 1858, after the birth of Samuel and Winifred’s third child, Priscilla Winifred Pickersgill at French Island, and 1866, when seventh child Samuel Jabez was born at San Remo.659 Given the confusion surrounding these details and dates, it seems pertinent to ask if the Pickersgills really did just arrive unannounced on Churchill Island as has generally been recounted, particularly as Samuel Jabez was not an eyewitness to the Pickersgill occupation of Churchill Island, being born a year or more later. What his recollections and Thompson’s research into the family’s records do suggest, however, is that Samuel Pickersgill had an ambiguous relationship with the law and love of gambling.

While Winifred Pickersgill is routinely portrayed as a dedicated homemaker and resourceful small businesswoman, eventually beaten by her inability to control her assets as a married woman in colonial Victoria,660 her husband Samuel Kirby Pickersgill is portrayed as a ‘colourful’ character, who ‘though on the land never seriously took to farming’,661 a drinker, gambler, possible former convict and ship jumper, who made the occasional lucky break.662 These qualities suggest that Samuel Pickersgill might very well have engaged with

658 Alessandro Portelli has contended that oral history ‘tells us less about events than about their meaning’. More recently Paula Ashton has reiterated Portelli’s arguments that ‘oral history was never just a form of evidence’ highlighting Michael Friches’s work in the process, which Ashton notes looks at how remembering also includes ‘forgetting, misremembering, silences and so forth’. Alessandro Portelli, ‘What Makes Oral History Different’ in The Oral History Reader, Robert Perks and Alistair Thompson eds (London, New York: Routledge, 1997), 67; Paula Ashton, ‘The Oral Historian as Memorist’, The Oral History Review 32, no. 1 (Winter–Spring 2005):17–18. 659 Priscilla Winifred Pickersgill was born on French Island on 9 July 1857; Marion Louisa Pickersgill was born on Churchill Island on 13 October 1860; Catherine Pickersgill was born on Churchill Island on 11 February 1862; Elsie Ann Pickersgill was born in 1864, date and place unknown and Samuel Jabez Pickersgill was born at Fiddlers Green, San Remo on 22 September 1866. Laurie Thompson, ‘Descendants of Samuel Kirby Pickersgill’, Family Tree Maker, http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/o/l/o/Michael-J- Oloughlin/GENE6-0001.html, accessed, 10 May, 2013. Since the VGG does not record McCallum taking up the French Island pastoral run until 1861, I at first thought this made both of these narratives somewhat suspect, as the details of neither seemed to be congruent with the records in the VGG. I later became better acquainted with the practise of squatting, and squatters’ disinclination to abide by the rules laid down by their settler colonial governments. 660 Thompson, ed., ‘Samuel Jabez Pickergill: from his handwritten notes’, Port Phillip Pioneers Group, http://www.portphillippioneersgroup.org.au/pppg5da.htm accessed 12 May 2013; Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 197. 661 Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 197. 662 Baird cites Samuel as jumping ship in 1841, but my conversations with her and the box of notes she left me lead me to believe that this information was acquired from Thompson, rather than being archival in nature. Thompson and other family members’ efforts to acquire evidence of Samuel’s convict record have come up 155

John Rogers in some kind of extra-legal arrangement concerning Churchill Island, but the Pickersgills’ own family history suggests that this was unlikely to have been the sale Smith denounced, but rather the second arrangement which had been offered, though not accepted. Both Cutter and Baird’s histories of Churchill Island argue that while the Pickersgill family history records various moments of economic prosperity for Samuel and Winifred, they were not experiencing one of these periods during their occupation of Churchill Island.663 Supporting this argument is Samuel’s indenture to Alex McCallum on French Island, dating from 1860, which makes them a poor fit for the mystery purchase of £300 for the goodwill of one of Rogers’s islands.664 The Pickersgills’ poor financial position, however, does not mean they would have been uninterested in taking over the interest of Churchill Island, perhaps hoping to take over its lease in much the same way that Rogers had taken Sandstone Island, or that their former employer Alex McCallum may have done at French Island.665 The ‘truth’ borne out of this is that it is entirely possible that the Pickersgills settled on Churchill Island with every intention of remaining there, and were not merely passing through as I had originally conceived.

The evidence above offers good support for the Pickersgills’ belief that they were Churchill Island’s first settlers, but in the end, the island was not purchased by them, but at auction by Rogers at a special lot in 1865.666 This means of purchase was unusual by the 1860s in rural areas: as a result of the Land Acts, purchase in rural areas was usually via selection, and indeed this was how land was sold on neighbouring Phillip and French

with some possible matches, but it is difficult to know for certain if it is the same Samuel Pickersgill, though on balance it seems highly probable. Family tales are the provenance for Samuel’s whisky habit, the number of tales including it as a turning point in the story lend the impression that the habit was both highly memorable as well as disastrous for the family’s economic prosperity. 663 Family inheritances, shares in the Hobson Bay Railway Company, and Melbourne property are all proffered as examples of the relative wealth the Pickersgill family enjoyed at various stages, though little of this is documented. Gliddon acquired this information from an interview with an unnamed Pickersgill granddaughter. Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 197; Cutter, A Special Place, 6, 8, 9; Baird, History and Her Story, 28. 664 According to Gliddon, who recounts a tale of Winifred Pickersgill giving birth alone on Churchill Island, the reason she had no help was that Samuel Pickersgill was away shearing for Phillip Island lessees, the McHaffies, suggestive that the Pickersgills were not living on an inheritance or shares. Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 197. 665Alex MaCallum is not listed in the VGG as the lessee of French Island at this time of Samuel Pickersgill’s indenture, although he did acquire it later, suggesting that Rogers’s practice of mortgaging or swapping pastoral leases for cash or other valuables may have been widespread amongst Western Port’s squatting fraternity. Interview with Laurie Thompson, 30 July 2007. 666 Argus, 16 December 1865, p.4. 156

Islands.667 Auction by Special Lot was generally arranged in rural areas because a person wished to obtain a specific property, and in recognition that the property had been improved by a previous tenant—usually a squatter. The interested buyer would apply to have the lot surveyed and the property would be valued in a way that ensured the price paid by the buyer would cover, or at least provide some kind of restitution to anyone who had ‘improved’ the land, who would then be compensated by the Crown after the sale. Churchill Island was valued at £1/1/0 per acre, which was expensive in comparison with selection, suggestive that the property had indeed been valued with the various ‘improvements’ made to its landscape in mind.668 Because the land was offered at public auction, it would have been possible for either Rogers or the Pickersgills to purchase it, but as the property was purchased at the upset prices of £210, this indicates that Rogers was the sole bidder.669 Thompson has argued that this was because Samuel Pickersgill lost the money for the auction at a card game, but this is impossible to verify, and while the Pickersgills may have been eager to retain the improvements they had made at Churchill Island there is little doubt that their eventual purchase of land at San Remo via selection would have been far cheaper.670 There is also the possibility that by the time Churchill Island was proffered for sale, the Pickersgills were no longer residents there, as there is some evidence that the Rogers family moved there sometime between 1863 and 1864.

There is evidence supporting the idea that John Rogers was living on Churchill Island at least part of the time from the early 1860s. Smith cited John Rogers as being the resident of Churchill, rather than Sandstone Island in his debates of 1861,671 and Rogers’s pastoral return of 1862 also gave his residence as Churchill Island.672 Cole, however, argued that Rogers was still living on Sandstone Island in 1862, since this was the residence listed on his marriage

667 Selection offered the purchaser a means of renting the property while they worked it and improvements were carried out. After a suitable period, and having met certain conditions with regard to the improvements specified by the Act under which the property was selected, the selector was able to complete their purchase. Most notably these included the building of a fence and the clearing of land for either grazing or agriculture. See Appendix A for full details. 668 Argus, 16 December 1865, p.4. 669 Ibid. 670 Correspondence with Thompson,19 March 2010, 13 March 2015; Thompson, ed., ‘Samuel Jabez Pickergill: from his handwritten notes’, Port Phillip Pioneers Group, http://www.portphillippioneersgroup.org.au/pppg5da.htm accessed 12 May 2013; Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 197. 671 Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 192, from Hansard debate in L.A. October 1861. 672 VGG no. 4, 13 January 1862, 66; no. 61, 19 May 1862, 864. 157 certificate.673 Cole’s argument is upheld by a series of newspaper articles covering the poaching of Rogers’s partridges, appearing between April and May of 1862 in the Argus, which imply that Rogers was regularly absent from his home at Sandstone Island.674 According to Cole’s history, Pioneers and Preachers, which utilised Rogers’s family history much the same way as Gliddon used the Pickersgills’, John Rogers moved his wife and first child Mary from Sandstone Island to Churchill Island between September 1863 and October 1864 into an unfinished house.675 Further support for this argument can be found in the birth records of John and Sarah Rogers’s second child, John Churchill Rogers, who was born at Churchill Island in October 1864.676 This suggests that the Rogers family had moved to Churchill Island prior to their purchase of it in 1865, either sharing with their tenants the Pickersgills for a time, or possibly moving them on earlier than Cutter or Baird presumed. What this demonstrates is that squatting, rather than purchase was the means through which settlement was first effected on Churchill Island, but that this method of settling differed both from modern conceptions of this term as I explained to Thompson and FOCIS, and British settler colonial rules governing pastoral licence. Purchasing land, however, did offer settlers an opportunity to safeguard their investments against actions of other settlers.

Creating a Permanent Settled Space and What it Meant

At the beginning of this chapter I argued that Churchill Island’s settlement was effected in a variety of ways. So far this chapter has established Churchill Island was settled not through the purchase of land, but through the conscious decision of settlers to ignore the strictures of pastoral licences and the use they were designed for to create permanent homes in which they could settle through lease rather than purchase. Taking Lefebvre’s injunctions about the three ways in which space is produced as a starting point (through representations of space, representational spaces and spatial practice),677 this section will examine the manner in which settlers’ use of Churchill Island made a new kind of landscape, one that reflected and

673 In 1862 John Rogers listed himself as supervising at Churchill Island, and his brother Richard at Sandstone Island. VGG no. 4, 13 January 1862, 66; no. 61, 19 May 1862, 864; Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 18. 674 According to the articles, Rogers’s partridges on Sandstone Island were hand fed on a daily basis, but had been shot on two separate occasions (sometime in early April and again in early May) by ‘gentlemen’ while Rogers was away. Argus, 4 April, 1862, p.4; 14 May 1862, p. 5. 675 Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 18; Cutter, Churchill Island: A Special Place, 15–7. 676 Ibid. 677 I take this to mean: ideas and their communication; landscapes, and their features, objects or places; and performance, both physical and emotional. Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 33. 158 embodied their desires to alter Churchill Island permanently, and transform it into a settled space. The physical changes Churchill Island’s settlers made, and the uses to which they put the island, were not only conceptualised and communicated to the settler society in which they operated, but accepted and protected by that society, safeguarding their changes to Churchill Island for future generations.

Making a Home

Home making is an essential aspect of settlement. It offers a form of personal expression a means of displaying one’s taste and cultural distinction, and serves as a potent symbol to others that ‘this space is taken’. Indeed, in Ceremonies of Possession, Seed argues that this was a form of taking possession of space that was particularly common to British explorers, colonists and settlers.678 Above all, home making is an important expression of one’s desire to ‘stay’, at least for a little while, which Veracini argues is the crucial difference between the sojourner and the settler.679 As this chapter has demonstrated, however, this desire to ‘stay’ was not specific to those who openly proclaimed themselves as settlers, but could also apply to squatters who had permanent intentions in mind, but were willing to use impermanent methods to achieve their ends. Both the Pickersgills and the Rogers families made homes on Churchill Island; homes intended, or at least hoped to be part of a process of permanently establishing their presence in Western Port and their use of a specific portion of that space.

Creating a complete picture of either the Pickersgills’ or Rogers’s efforts to transform Churchill Island into their home is difficult due to the lack of diaries or letters recording these activities, but there are sources that can confirm or flesh out family tales of home making recorded in the oral histories of both families. In 1861 Charles Ferguson completed a survey of the eastern entrance of Western Port, and his map contains a depiction of Churchill Island. Although this map does not give a detailed impression of the island as a whole, but rather as Lewis notes, provides a reference point for sailors entering the eastern entrance of Western Port, it does show a structure on the island and a shelter belt of trees encircling its eastern shore. The structure, referred to as a ‘white house’ on the map, probably occupied the high portion of the island’s central hill, rather than the shore because this part of the map lies far

678 Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 17. 679 Veracini argues that it is the desire to stay that differentiates the settler from the sojourner. Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 17–20. 159 beyond the scale representation depicting the entrance to Western Port, indicating that it was depicted only as it would be viewed by sailors entering the harbour. Given the date of Ferguson’s survey, and arguments cited above concerning the Pickersgills’ residence on Churchill Island, it seems likely that the house recorded on this map was the Pickersgills’ home.680

In his heritage assessment, Lewis argued that the structure shown on the map does not match the plan of any of the present buildings extant on Churchill Island, and must therefore have been an earlier structure, which was later removed. Based on the rectangles depicting the structure, Lewis posited that the white house probably had a gabled roof, represented by the smaller rectangle, and a surrounding veranda.681 It is likely that the building was some kind of wattle and daub construction, which would have been cheap to build, if labour intensive, and whitewashed as Ferguson’s naming of the building suggests.682 How many rooms it contained, if it had more than one, and its dimensions are unknown. It is also uncertain as to whether or not the Pickersgills built the house they probably made their home: Samuel Jabez argued that the Pickersgills moved on to an empty island, but Gliddon argued that other family stories claimed that there was a building in existence prior to the Pickersgills’ tenure that was not the 1801 Blockhouse erected on the orders of Lieutenant Grant by his convict crew.683 Considering the likely financial position of the Pickersgills at this time it is unlikely that the house was filled with more than basic necessities, although it is possible that some mementoes from their previous homes, both in Australia and England, helped the Pickersgills transform the house into a home. Their daily presence in the building, at least during the evenings and in inclement weather would also have contributed to this process, with routine chores and habits occurring within its walls, such as eating the mussels

680 Although it is also possible that it was a structure built by John Rogers for his occasional stays on the island, I think this unlikely, as his stays would have been of short duration, and a wattle and daub hut would have required greater upkeep than say canvas stretched over a base of wood or simple frame. 681 Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft, 6. 682 While Lewis’s heritage assessment of Churchill Island argues that the homestead showed evidence of an earlier wattle and daub building, he later refined this theory, suggesting that the sawn plates with alternating round holes and mortices were too fresh to have been used as a frame for an earlier building, and instead had probably been imported to the island for the building that was never constructed. Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft, 8–9; Miles Lewis, ‘Hybrid Types: Wattle and Daub’ in Australian Building: A Cultural Investigation, Internet Database available at http://mileslewis.net/australian-building/pdf/04-hybrid- types/hybrid-types-wattle-daub.pdf, accessed 1 September 2014. 683 Thompson, ed., ‘Samuel Jabez Pickersgill: from his handwritten notes’, Port Phillip Pioneers Group, http://www.portphillippioneersgroup.org.au/pppg5da.htm accessed 12 May 2013; Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 198. 160 they reputedly harvested from the shallow bay in which Churchill Island was situated.684 It was also the site of less usual events, including the births of Marion Louisa Pickersgill born on 13 October 1860, Catherine Pickersgill on 11 February 1862 at Churchill Island, and possibly Elsie Ann Pickersgill born in 1864.685

Unlike the Pickersgills, the Rogers’s home on Churchill Island is still standing. According to Lewis, the unfinished house into which John and Sarah Rogers moved their family was most likely to have been the rear or bakehouse cottage, if the Rogers’s family story did not mistake the two cottages for one single dwelling.686 It is possible that this was where Georgiana McHaffie slept during her overnight stay on Churchill Island in 1864, when she and her party were obliged to seek shelter from a thunderstorm at Churchill Island on her return from visiting Dr Anderson at Bass, although it is also possible that they stayed in the older white house that had been the Pickersgills’ residence, since McHaffie provides no details about where she stayed or its residents.687 The sea chest that sits in the front cottage, which was bequeathed to Churchill Island by the John and Sarah Rogers’s descendants, probably formed part of their furniture, and it would have been a useful storage space.688 During the Rogers’s tenure it is probable that the front building was used for cooking and other social activities, and the rear as domicile or sleeping quarters.689

684 Thompson, ed., ‘Samuel Jabez Pickergill: from his handwritten notes’, Port Phillip Pioneers Group, http://www.portphillippioneersgroup.org.au/pppg5da.htm, accessed 12 May 2013. 685 Thompson notes that the location of Elise Ann’s birth was unknown. Laurie Thompson, ‘Descendants of Samuel Kirby Pickersgill’, Family Tree Maker, http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/o/l/o/Michael-J- Oloughlin/GENE6-0001.html, accessed, 10 May, 2013. 686 Lewis, 9. 687 Georgina McHaffie had stayed overnight at Dr Anderson’s on 13 March. On the 14 March she attempted to return home to her husband’s property on the far side of Phillip Island. She reached her husband’s property the following day. Georgiana McHaffie, Diary, 13, 14, 15 March 1864, Transcript held by PIDHS. 688 Former gardener Megan McCarthy explained that the chest was one of the few objects in any of the buildings that had a direct connection with Churchill Island’s former residents. Field trip, May 2008. 689 Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft, 10. 161

Fig. 15 Charles Ferguson, Eastern Entrance to Western Port and the Anchorages off Cape Wollamai Surveyed by Charles Ferguson, Esqre. Chief Harbour Master of Victoria, 1861. Courtesy of the NLA, Insert of Churchill Island enlarged from original and added by E. Rebecca Sanders.

How much the Rogers’s cottages resembled their present day counterparts is very difficult to say with accuracy. The Phillip Island and District Road Board, and its Rate Books, was not created until 1871, and as such there are no written records to tell when the cottages were 162 constructed or their details.690 According to Lewis, the island’s next owner, Samuel Amess, reputedly altered them so they could serve as servants’ quarters,691 and the VCT also made a number of changes to the buildings in the early 1980s as I noted in Chapter Three, one of which was to increase the height of the front cottage chimney to stop it from smoking.692 According to Lewis’s assessment of the buildings completed in 1999, the rear cottage is constructed in the ‘manner of an American balloon frame, rather than the Australian stud frame’ with the timber frame bearing the hallmarks of being manufactured using a circular saw, as did the rafters and plates, which he identified as Oregon.693 Clearly Rogers did not simply build the two cottages out of local timber from the island itself, but imported it. It is possible that Rogers used round log stumps of native Moonah to stump the front cottage, but as Lewis noted, there is no way of knowing if these are original, as the building was re- blocked during the 1980 reconstruction.694 Both buildings were clad in weatherboard, much of which was replaced with ‘used’ weatherboards rather than heritage materials during the 1980–2 reconstruction of the cottages, again making it difficult to know what the original materials were.695 Nonetheless, the general shape of the cottages, with the exception of the additional lean-to room on the front cottage, which was probably a more modern construction,696 can still be discerned by visitors to Churchill Island today.

690 Rate Books, Shire of Mornington, Phillip Island 1872, 1873, 1874. PROV, VPRS 11215, P0001, Unit 1. 691 Ibid. 692 Carroll Schulz, To FOCIS Executive and Staff, Churchill Island: Projects Record from 1976 (original copy provided by Carroll Schulz, unpublished report for FOCIS, 1996), 20–1. Carroll Schulz, private collection. 693 Something Lewis noted was not ‘uncommon’ in the nineteenth century. Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft, 10. 694 Ibid., 11; Carroll Schulz, To FOCIS Executive and Staff, Churchill Island: Projects Record from 1976 (original copy provided by Carroll Schulz, unpublished report for FOCIS, 1996), 20–1. Carroll Schulz, private collection. 695 Ibid., 21. Carroll Schulz, private collection. Considering Schulz’s comments about the corrosive nature of sea winds, it is entirely possible that this was not the first time the buildings had been reclad. 696 Lewis notes that it is an addition and implies that it is not likely to be of the same era without directly stating so. Lewis frequently noted in his assessment that the 1980s reconstruction work in particular had made it very difficult to state with certainty what the cottages would have been like during the mid-nineteenth century when they were built. Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft, 8–12. 163

Fig. 16 The two cottages built by John Rogers, with the rear or bakehouse cottage on the right. Author’s own, 5 June 2008.

Constructing a Settled Landscape. In a rural locale like Churchill Island the construction of a house was not the sum of settlers’ home-making efforts, which stretched to include the creation of gardens and indeed whole landscapes designed to provide sustenance and pleasure as well as meet social, economic and personal needs. This involved labour intensive work like clearing trees and scrub, replanting areas with exotic flora and introducing animals foreign to the formerly native landscape. Comparison between Ferguson’s 1861 map and Stokes’s earlier map of 1843–5 suggests that other than a shelter belt, Churchill Island had been substantially cleared by 1861, either by John Rogers, the Pickersgills or some combination of the two, probably with the assistance of some kind of hired labour. Local mythology records that Rogers at least was not above hiring labourers to help with large or difficult tasks, such as his potato harvest.697 Rogers would have needed to clear a space for his fields of wheat and potatoes, which Smith’s debates and Georgianna McHaffie’s diaries record produced anywhere from half a ton to a ton of potatoes

697 Gliddon, Phillip Island, 198. 164 at Churchill Island, and at least part of the four tons of wheat he was capable of farming across his island holdings.698 If Churchill Island’s landscape of the past thirty years is any guide, these fields were probably sited on the gently sloping eastern side of the island or possibly on the slightly steeper southern side near where Grant’s memorial cairn is situated today.699 Schulz, Churchill Island’s former manager, believes a shelter belt would have been retained to protect both the house and possibly Rogers’s wheat and potatoes from salt laden winds, which Schulz complained had a tendency to burn off crops and quickly weather the island’s structures.700 Phillip Island’s historian, Gliddon, argued that fencing was put up by Samuel Kirby Pickersgill, although how he formed this conclusion is unknown.701 Gliddon’s ‘story’ map shows fencing surrounding the space where the buildings were situated, today’s heritage precinct, with the south-eastern side continuing all the way to the waterline, effectively dividing the island in two.702 These fences would have been important additions after 1861, since Rogers’s stock reports record two cows being depastured on Churchill Island.703 Since the Rogers family did not move to Churchill Island until at least 1864, these records may refer to the small dairy operation run by Winifred Pickersgill, whose descendants recalled her packing butter into crates to be sold by Captain Loch in Melbourne; although it is also possible she sold butter locally.704 Dairying was traditionally considered to be women’s work as an extension of the kitchen, and this being the case it is unsurprising that Churchill Island continued to be used for small scale dairying once the Rogers family made it their home. Georgiana McHaffie wrote in May of 1865 that she had bought butter from Mrs Rogers for 13s 10d.705 In the years following Rogers’s purchase of Churchill Island in

698 In his debates, Smith argued that he had records of Rogers selling four tons of wheat and fourteen bags of potatoes during the month of October in 1861. On the 5 July 1864, Georgiana McHaffie, recorded in her diary that her husband John had brought a Mrs Lee and a ton of potatoes from Churchill Island on that day. The following year a similar entry was written by McHaffie on 26 of April, recording: ‘Master came, bringing half a ton of potatoes from Churchill Island in boat’. ‘Churchill, Sandstone and Philip’s [sic] Island s’ Victorian Hansard, Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 24 October 1861, p. 199; Debates of the Legislative Assembly, Third Parliament, 29 October 1861, p. 213; Georgiana McHaffie, Diary, 5 July 1864; Georgiana McHaffie, Diary, 26 April 1865.Transcript held by PIDHS. 699 Churchill Island’s landscape at the height of summer in 1982 was captured very well in the film Summerfield, with long grass and fields occupying the eastern slope leading up the houses at the summit of the hill. Summerfield, VHS, directed by Ken Hannam (1977; Australia: Village Roadshow Home Video, 1982). 700 Interview with Carroll and Amy Schulz, Coronet Bay, 10 December 2007. See also Carroll Schulz, To FOCIS Executive and Staff, Churchill Island: Projects Record from 1976, 3. Carroll Schulz, private collection. 701 Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 198 & ‘Story Map’ back piece. 702 Ibid. 703 VGG no. 85, 31 May 1861, 1050; no. 61, 16 May 1862, 864. 704 Baird, History and Her Story, 28. 705 Georgiana McHaffie, Diary, Cash entries for May 1865. Transcript held by PIDHS. 165

1865,706 he altered his use of Churchill Island from primarily agricultural, albeit with a small dairy, to mixed farming, importing a large number of sheep onto the property. From 1867 onwards records document John Rogers’s wool sales from sheep he grazed on Churchill Island. Table 4 drawn from the NLA’s Trove newspaper database shows the annual wool clip Rogers appears to have sold on the Melbourne markets during the second half of the 1860s.707

Table 4 Annual Wool Clip Sales for Churchill Island 1867–9

Date Sold Wool Type Quantity Sale Price per Bale

5 January 1867 Greasy wool 2 bales 10 1/2d

Greasy wool pieces 1 bale 4d

Sheepskins 1 bale 8d

4 December 1868 Greasy wool 2 bales 6 1/3d

Greasy wool 1 bale 2 1/8d

Sheepskins 2 bales 2 3/4d

Sheepskins 10 bales 4d

29 January 1869 Greasy wool lamb 2 bales 6 1/3d

Greasy wool locks 1 bale 3 3/8d

Modern figures relating to Merino wool production estimate that it takes ‘fifty skirted fleeces to fill a wool bale’, but as there is no data available as to what type of sheep Rogers stocked, however, such a figure should be taken as a minimum value to account for both the larger

706 Argus, 16 December 1865, p.4. 707 Figures of wool sold from ‘Wool Sales’ Argus, 5 January 1867, p. 4; 4 December 1868, p. 4; 28 January 1869, p. 4. 166 size of modern merinos, and the breed’s higher fleece to meat ratio.708 Nevertheless, such a statistic makes it possible to roughly estimate that Rogers, and the help he undoubtedly hired to assist him, sheared a minimum of 150 sheep a year annually during the years 1867, 1868 and 1869. Added to this figure of 150 sheep, is the number of sheep which would have been killed in 1867 and 1868 to produce the single bale and twelve bales of sheep skins Rogers sold each year respectively, figures that strongly suggestive that Rogers may have overstocked Churchill Island in 1867–8.

Churchill Island’s settlers made numerous changes to the island’s landscape to make the space better suited to their lifestyles, which followed imported British ideals of homemaking and the nuclear family. Pickersgill family tradition maintains that a large kitchen garden was created and maintained by the hard working Winifred Pickersgill during her residence on the island.709 Winifred Pickersgill’s garden was probably placed near the house where she and her family lived so that she would not have far to walk between table and garden, an important consideration for a woman with up to four children to care for under the age of ten. The Rogers family later enlarged on these efforts when they became the island’s second settlers, and there is some evidence to suggest that their home on Churchill Island was patterned closely on their earlier home at Sandstone Island.710 John Rogers, together with his wife Sarah, put down paths of crushed shell, perhaps as sign of their appreciation of the seaside environment in which they lived and family’s connection with the smaller islands of Western Port. To the kitchen garden that was already established, John Rogers added an orchard, the supply of its trees attributed by family sources to his brother Richard Rogers, demonstrating the usefulness of family networks in the settlement process.711 In addition, Rogers also planted a shrubbery, this time with trees reportedly provided to him by the colony’s Government botanist, Ferdinand Von Mueller.712 Rogers would have had

708 Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, Queensland Primary Industries and Fisheries ‘Shearing’ in Facts and Figures on Sheep and Wool, available athttp://www2.dpi.qld.gov.au/sheep/6572.html, accessed 19 November 2009. 709 Pickersgill family history presents Winifred as practically running the island while her husband sought work on nearby Phillip Island or in the surrounds of Western Port. Although there are no written records of what Winifred grew, there are records of her husband shearing for the McHaffies. ‘Pickersgill went to King’s Creek today’. Georgiana McHaffie, Diary, 17 May 1864. Transcript held by PIDHS; Interview with Laurie Thompson, 30 July 2007; Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 197; Cutter, A Special Place, 7; Baird, History and Her Story, 26. 710 Which also featured an orchard, shrubbery and shell paths. Cutter, A Special Place, 17. 711 The trees later become one of the property’s selling features. Argus, 24 September 1869, p. 8; Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 18. 712 Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 18. 167 quite a bit of contact with Von Muller, either in person, or thorough letters and other exchanges, due to their mutual involvement with the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria (hereafter ASV).

Thus far I have discussed some of the more obvious means through which settlers sought to shape the landscapes into their ‘home’, transforming Churchill Island in the process from a Boon Wurrung to a settled space. But Victoria’s settler colonial society sought its perpetuation not only through the acts of individuals who made their homes in the most restricted sense of that word, but also through public acts and public groups like the ASV, who extended the construction and maintenance of (social) space to the rising middle classes of Victoria’s nineteenth century. The ASV, one the longest running organisations in the colony, and one which made a series of profound changes to the Victorian settler colonial landscape and environment through its conscious introduction of exotic flora and fauna, was inaugurated in 1861, and John Rogers was one of its earliest members.713 While the ASV was not the first organisation to introduce new animals and plants into the colony of Victoria, it was the first that aimed to make them available for a broad range of uses by the general public, whether for profit, sport, gardening, or to assuage homesickness. On its behalf, John Rogers released four ‘English Pheasants, presented [to the ASV] by the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Caernarvon, and Mr F. Buxton,’ at Sandstone and Churchill Islands.714 In addition to the pheasants, undoubtedly one of Britain’s favourite game birds, Rogers further ‘liberated’ four thrushes and four skylarks at Sandstone and Churchill Islands in 1861, which were considered useful as song and grub eating birds.715 The introduction of such a limited number of these birds onto Rogers’s islands is indicative of the great expense and effort such operations entailed. Releases at Churchill and Sandstone Islands accounted for eleven percent of the total number of birds introduced by the society into Victoria by August of 1861. At neighbouring Phillip Island, which was leased by John D. McHaffie, himself a member of the ASV, only five pheasants, six skylarks, four thrushes and four blackbirds had been introduced. 716 In addition to introducing exotic flora and fauna, the ASV’s members also

713 The ASV was formed in 1861 in order to amalgamate the effort of previous societies, including the Zoological Society and Port Phillip Farmer’s Society, into an organisation which comprehensively aimed to alter the Victorian environment and its landscape. Linden Gillbank, ‘The Origins of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria: Practical Science in the Wake of the Gold Rush’ in Historical Records of Australian Science, 6, no. 3 (November 1980): 368–72. 714 ‘Dr. Muller’s Report’, Argus, 11 February 1861, p. 6; ‘Acclimatisation Society’, 8 August 1861, p. 5. 715 Ibid. 716 ‘Acclimatisation Society’, The Argus, 8 August 1861, p. 5. 168 collected indigenous flora and fauna for exchange with other like-minded societies.717 John Rogers is recorded as having caught a brace of brown quail and donating them to the ASV for exchange with other acclimatisation and like-minded societies in 1864, and given the dates, it seems likely these came from Churchill Island.718 Based on the perceived success of releases at Churchill and Sandstone Islands,719 and those conducted by Rogers’s neighbour on Philip Island, John D. McHaffie,720 the ASV successfully lobbied for the reservation of a half mile wide coastal strip around Phillip Island to be set aside for acclimatisation purposes in 1863, believing that the islands provided a safe habitat for birds due to being free from large mainland based predators including native cats and dingos.721 This understanding of Western Port’s islands as a site of comparative safety, however, appears to have been somewhat in error. Not only did these acclimatised birds have to be wary of predators such as ‘sea eagles and large hawks’,722 they also had to be protected from enterprising sportsman. In 1862, Rogers’s carefully acclimatised partridges on Sandstone Island, which were hand fed on a daily basis, were shot on two separate occasions (sometime in early April and again in early May) by ‘gentlemen’ while Rogers was away.723 The means through which these activities were recorded offers a clue as to extent to which settlers’ use and shaping of the Victorian landscape and its features had normalised by the 1860s; it was no longer necessary to minutely record such uses of space in official government records like naval logbooks, nor publish accounts of eating the local waterfowl and comment on the excellence of their eating in a published journal like Grant’s Narrative of

717 Gillbank, ‘The Origins of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria’: 72. 718 The ASV ‘acknowledged with thanks’ the donation of twelve brace of brown quail from ‘Mr. John Rogers, of Churchill Island, Western Port’. Brown Quail, an Australian native found in northern and eastern part of the continent, Tasmania, as well as in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, appears to have formed a welcome addition to British colonial sport, and it was introduced by the British into New Zealand. ‘The Acclimatisation Society’, The Argus, 12 June 1863, p. 7; Australian Museum, ‘Brown Quail’, Birds in Backyards, 2005, available at http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/bird/183, accessed 12 November 2009. 719 Dr Muller reported that some of Rogers’ pheasants were still seen ‘after the lapse of many months’. ‘Dr. Muller’s Report’, Argus, 11 February 1861, p. 6. 720 ‘Dr. Muller’s Report’, Argus, 11 February 1861, p. 6. 721 Victorian Government Gazette No.70, 7 July 1863, 1510;R. Wright, ‘The Fight for Phillip Island’ in Journal of Australian Studies, No. 7, (November 1980), p. 26. 722 R. Wright, ‘The Fight for Phillip Island’ in Journal of Australian Studies, no. 7 (November 1980):30 from Internal Report, Hodgkinson, 2 September 1866, Folio 85, Acclimatisation Papers. 723 ‘On this occasion not even the privacy of Mr. Rogers’ garden was respected by these people in the pursuit of what is called sport, but was ruthlessly invaded, and the birds shot without mercy.’ Argus, 8 May 1862, p. 5; 14 May, p. 4; and Canary, ‘The Enemies of Acclimatisation’ Letter to the Editor, 14 May p. 5; Brisbane Courier, 22 May, p. 3. 169 a Voyage of Discovery. Newspaper reports and notices in the VGG were all that were required to communicate settlers’ success or failure in making a settler colonial space.

Leaving

While the current heritage interpretation of Churchill Island depicts the site as a heritage farm, the reality is that Churchill Island was too small to offer much more than subsistence. Rogers’s likely overstocking of the island in 1867–8 would have highlighted this problem, and the passing of Grant’s Land Act in 1869, which not only allowed selection prior to survey, but also increased possible lease period from three to ten years, probably encouraged Rogers to look for a larger portion of land elsewhere. The 1869 Land Act was notable not only for its enabling of smaller selectors, but also of its effectiveness in opening up previously unsettled land through the generosity of its provisions. It was most effective in the more easily cleared regions of the Wimmera and northern Victoria, but it also induced selectors to try their luck in the dense forests of Gippsland, and amongst these selectors were John and Sarah Rogers.724 In light of this, Rogers’s mortgage of Churchill Island to John McHaffie in June 1869, and subsequent selection at Brandy Creek in 1870, suggests the move may have been planned, not forced; the mortgage was a means of raising the capital necessary for the selection of a land at what was then called Brandy Creek, but which by the end of Rogers life was known as Buln Buln. In her history, Pioneers and Preachers, Cole relates how John Rogers’s selection at Brandy Creek was the result of James Hann’s ‘glowing reports’ of Gippsland.725 The move, as Cole notes, illustrated the strength of familial and geographical connections in the process of early European land settlement.726 John Rogers, his wife, Sarah Jane Rogers nee Henry and their children were joined in the venture by James Hann, scion of Joseph Hann and owner of Coolart Station, the largest run in Western Port.727 Hann, John Rogers, and John Rogers’s brother Richard Rogers were among

724 Geoffrey Serle, The Rush to be Rich: A History of the Colony of Victoria, 1883–1889, (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1971, reprint 1974), 4–5. 725 Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 18. 726 Ibid. 727 It seems that James Hann must have been a less famous brother to Frank and William Hann, both of whom were involved in the exploration of Queensland. Cole, Pioneers and Preachers, 18; G.C. Bolton, ‘Hann, Frank Hugh (1846–1921), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume IV, Melbourne University Press, 1972, p. 335– 6. 170

Brandy Creek’s first selectors.728 Richard’s wife, Sarah Birch Rogers nee King, was Sarah Jane’s cousin, and daughter of Western Port’s first pastoral run holder, Martha King nee Henry. Sarah Jane Rogers’s brother (and by extension Sarah Birch’s cousin), John Henry, also formed part of the early settlement party. The pattern set in Western Port of settling in family networks was successfully repeated, with John and Sarah Rogers eventually owning not one, but two properties, which became show places of successful settlement and farming that had not been possible in the confined spaces of Western Port’s smaller islands.729

Who Settled Churchill Island and Does it Matter?

In preceding version of this chapter it seemed important to ask the question ‘what makes a settler’ rather than ‘what constitutes settlement’ because the preceding histories had all agreed that the actions of both the Rogers and Pickersgill families constituted settlement, although they did not state why. In these histories making a home was synonymous with settling, and both families arguably made homes on Churchill Island, although only the Rogers’s is still standing. While home making is certainly one method or expression of settling, signifying and symbolising one’s intention to ‘stay’, it is not the only means by which settling is achieved.730 As Banivanua Mar and Edmonds succinctly put it, the purpose of settler colonists is to go to ‘new lands to appropriate them and establish new and improved replicas of the societies they left’.731 Indeed, Wolfe has argued that the ‘primary object of settler colonialism is the land itself’.732 This appropriation of land, or space, as Wolfe has argued, was designed to be permanent.733 This in turn, as both Banivanua Mar and Edmonds argue, necessitated the production of a permanent settler space, which simultaneously dispossessed Indigenous peoples, since settlers ‘tended not to emigrate to assimilate into

728 Together with Richard Higgs, Henry Walters, and James Young. Linda Barraclough and Debra Squires, Steps in Time, a Gippsland Chronology to 1899 (Bairnsdale: Kapana Press, 1992) see also Linda Barraclough, Debra Squires, Walter Savige, Brian Askew, ‘Steps in Time: A Gippsland Timeline’, Gippsland Timeline, available at http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~surreal/AVG/Resources/timeline.html, accessed 14 May 2009. 729 In Victoria and Its Metropolis, Sutherland noted that John Rogers had originally taken out a selection of 320 acres, but eventually owned 572 acres, valued at £40 per acre. Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Volume 2A, 383. 730 Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 3–4. 731 Banivanua Mar and Edmonds, ‘Introduction’, 2. 732 Wolfe in Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 8. 733 Banivanua Mar and Edmonds, ‘Introduction’, 4–5. 171 indigenous societies, but rather emigrated to replace them’.734 If settlement requires the production of a permanent settlement space, then it seems pertinent to ask if settlers might be constituted not only as those who ‘settle’ permanently, but those who are involved in the production of a permanent settler space. While Veracini has argued that this is not the case,735 he does allow that migrants can transform the societies in which they find themselves, ‘despite sustained effort[s] to contain and management their difference’, and has also acknowledged the role of sojourners in the making of permanent settler space.736 The difficulty in applying these theorems to historical examples like that of Churchill Island is that the categories of settler, sojourner, or even migrant, are not nearly as clear cut as might be presumed, as indeed Veracini acknowledges.737 As the above history demonstrates, John Rogers’s original occupation of Churchill Island is arguably that of a sojourner—he neither lived there nor appears to have had any intention of doing so, yet only a few years later Rogers is transformed into a permanent settler courtesy of building a home for his family and his purchase of the island. Yet, if we apply Veracini’s strict taxonomy of settling, it is not Rogers who is Churchill Island’s first settler, but rather the Pickersgill family, whose family history and other records support their argument that they moved to Churchill Island with the intention of permanent settlement, even if this did not eventuate. While the distinction of who the first settler was on Churchill Island was will arguably remain important to the Churchill Island Community, this chapter has highlighted not only the way in which both the Pickersgill and Rogers families, together with the settler society they were part of, all played important roles in the settlement of Churchill Island and the dispossession of its Indigenous peoples through their savvy appreciation of their settler colonial government’s difficulty in policing its legalisation of squatting. It has also highlighted the variety of forms settlement took, home making and farming were effective means of enabling settlement, but the acclimatisation of exotic fauna and flora was also important in making a recognisable settler colonial landscape. The communication of these changes was important also, not only to other individual settlers, but to the bureaucracy of settler colonial Victoria: Rogers retained his pastoral licence because he made stock returns and paid his fees, and Churchill Island’s sale was enshrined under settler colonial law, giving Rogers the means to protect the changes he and the Pickersgills had made to Churchill Island against other settlers and dispossessed

734 Ibid., 2, 4. 735 Settlers, by definition, stay, in specific contradistinction, colonial sojourners— administrators, missionaries, military personal, entrepreneurs, and adventurers— return.’ Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 6. 736 Ibid., 4, 6. 737 Ibid., 4. 172

Boon Wurrung. Settlement, however, was a complex process, and in the next chapter I will examine how Churchill Island was transformed into a very different settler colonial space during the late nineteenth century. 173

Chapter Six: Creating a Seaside Retreat, an Expression of Confidence

Anita Brady’s presentation of Lovell Chen’s progress on the creation of a Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island to FOCIS members in February 2015 drew to some extent on a draft of this chapter.738 In addition to highlighting how Brady expected Lovell Chen would redefine Churchill Island’s ‘woefully out of date’ heritage listing, she argued that the present interpretation of Churchill Island as a ‘heritage farm’ was a difficult fit with the island’s actual history as a site, since its use had largely related to leisure rather than serious farming.739 FOCIS’s response to the idea that the farming interpretation be removed was immediate and heartfelt: as one member put it, ‘surely you wouldn’t do away with that?’740 This was not the first time that Churchill Island’s lack of historical connection with serious farming had been broached—I began presentations in this vein to FOCIS in 2012741—but it was the most forthright, and perhaps the most powerful due to Lovell Chen’s authority as meaning makers.742 When I questioned FOCIS more specifically, one of two major reasons why members thought the farming interpretation should be retained was the belief that farming was an important, perhaps pre-eminent, format through which Australia had been settled, and that it was important to educate not only domestic visitors about this ‘fact’, but international visitors too, so that they would better appreciate and understand the place they were visiting.743 A series of unprovenanced and non-original negatives and photographs originally housed by DCNR, however, illustrates that Churchill Island not only looked different in the late nineteenth century than it does today, it was clearly valued and understood in quite different ways also.744

738 Anita Brady, ‘Presentation of Lovell Chen’s progress on drafting a Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island’, Field Notes, FOCIS meeting, Churchill Island, 14 February, 2015. 739 Ibid. 740 Ibid. 741 E. Rebecca Sanders, Not Your Average Settlement Story, Presentation for FOCIS, FOCIS meeting, Churchill Island, 10 November 2012. 742 Through both the specific terms of PINP’s contract with them and their status as professional consultants. 743 The other major reason related to ideas of food security and the education of an increasingly urbanised population about ‘where’ their food comes from. Question time following Brady, ‘Presentation of Lovell Chen’s progress on drafting a Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island’, Field Notes, FOCIS meeting, Churchill Island, 14 February, 2015. 744 Judging from Dyke and Spencer’s Churchill Island: An Historic Garden Conservation Study, it seems likely that all the photographs were originally part of one collection held by the DCNR. At present the collection is split in two, with some images being held in the CIA, and others by the DSE. Close analysis of Dyke and Spencer’s publication 174

In the previous chapter I examined how and why Churchill Island was finally settled almost sixty years after its first visitation by Europeans. Drawing on Wolfe’s assertion that in settler colonies, invasion is a structure rather than an event,745 this chapter investigates how and why Churchill Island was maintained as a settler colonial space into the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I argue that it is useful to not only examine how Churchill Island served as a site where an increasingly confident and sophisticated settler society pursued a range of abstract desires in the aftermath of the frontier period, but that its very shaping into this new kind of settler colonial space demonstrated the ideals, preoccupations and taboos of Victoria’s late nineteenth and early twentieth century settler society, and how it functioned. This chapter argues that Churchill Island’s continued maintenance as a settler space through a paradigm of leisure served as a potent manifestation of the success of the settlement project, simultaneously symbolising that success through the devotion of its landscape to non-essential pastimes and abstract ideals, and serving as a site where the ideals of successful settlement and settlers could be performed and made manifest through the shaping of its landscape. The devotion of an entire landscape to leisure and health was an illustration of the rewards an industrious settler could not only win for themselves and their families, but also their descendants for taking part in the settler project. Churchill Island therefore served as a powerful and sophisticated expression of the moral

further suggest that some images originally in the collection have now been lost, including those of Amess picking fruit in the orchard on Churchill Island. None of the images are originals, and their provenance is unknown. Being copies, rather than original photographs or negatives, has made it impossible to accurately date the images, but the clothes and hairstyles worn by Amess, and more particularly by his female family members or other visitors, suggests a date between 1885 and 1887 would be appropriate. Men’s fashion altered more slowly than women’s in the nineteenth century. The women’s clothes in the images discussed in this chapter were generally characterised by a dropped shoulder line, narrow sleeves, low bust line, a natural but short waistline that emphasised the width of the hips quite differently from the princess or cuirass line of the of the 1870s, which featured a longer waistline and resultant narrower looking hip line, as well as a narrower skirt. After 1886, sleaves began to be puffed and the shoulder line became squarer, if still wide, and skirts returned to a higher bustle and fuller outline, and a V neckline on jackets replaced the higher buttoned styles of the earlier 1880s. Most of the women feature dress that clearly dates as being after 1879 and prior to 1886, with one exception, which appears to feature the higher bustle, fuller skirt and V necked jacket, but not notably puffed sleeves popular from 1888 onwards. This suggests that the majority of women shown in the images had yet to change their fashion in line with the new silhouette, suggesting a date of the mid 1880s would be appropriate. Kent State University Museum, ‘Seaside Dress, 1885-1889’, Kent State University Museum, available at http://kent.pastperfect- online.com/34506cgi/mweb.exe?request=image&hex=19830010162%20ab-7.JPG, accessed 22 February 2015;Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘afternoon dress 1879’Victoria and Albert Museum, available at http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O74714/afternoon-dress-halling-pearce-and/, accessed 22 February 2015;Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘wedding dress, 1886’, Victoria and Albert Museum, available at http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O166230/wedding-dress-gladman-womack/, accessed 22 February 2015; Victoria and Albert Museum,‘1888 dress’, Victoria and Albert Museum, available at http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O13853/dress-unknown/,accessed 22 February 2015. 745 Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, 2. 175 righteousness of settler colonialism, a model to which settlers could aspire whilst ignoring the effects their settlement had perpetrated on the Indigenous peoples whose land they had appropriated. In doing so this chapter addresses FOCIS members’ belief in the importance of farming history and its presumed connections with the settling of Australia, the HCV’s Statement of Significance of the site, and recent academic thought on the nature of settler colonialism.

This chapter begins by contextualising the argument that Churchill Island functioned primarily as a site of health and leisure in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries against previous interpretations of the island and a perceived gap in scholarly literature directly linking the making of leisured landscapes with the making and maintenance of settler space in the post frontier period. It then looks at the process of transforming Churchill Island from frontier farm to a leisured settler colonial space not through physical works, but rather through its sale of Churchill Island in 1872. While previous authors have concentrated on owner Samuel Amess and the changes he wrought to the island, this chapter asserts that the process of transforming Churchill Island from one kind of settler space and into another began prior to its purchase, and was effected primarily through the practice of advertising. I follow with a description of its purchaser, Samuel Amess, and an analysis of the extent to which Amess fitted the demographic to which the sale of the island was targeted by real estate agents Stubbs and Co. I then examine the ways in which Amess, his family, and his descendants made Churchill Island into a leisured landscape. In doing so I address specific concerns of the Churchill Island Community, Churchill Island’s official heritage inscription by the HCV and previous and current heritage interpretations of the site: these include its use as a farm, the nature of its buildings, gardens and landscapes during this period and the provenance of the cannon that once served as the island’s logo. This is followed with an analysis and explanation of the reasons why Churchill Island was transformed into a site primarily used for leisure purposes, and the ways in which the island addressed specific concerns of Victorian settler society during this period with regard to health, leisure and social distinction. The chapter concludes by looking at the way in which the legacy of settler colonialism was carried through into the twentieth century and into Churchill Island’s postcolonial history.

176

Making New Iterations of Settler Space

While the current heritage interpretation of Churchill Island dwells on the site’s continued use as a farm since the 1850s,746 previous histories and heritage interpretations of Churchill Island have noted that Samuel Amess’s ownership of Churchill Island was a turning point in the site’s history. Cutter, Lewis and Baird have all noted how the island was altered through the addition of new buildings and gardens, but less space has been devoted to why this occurred. Cutter implied that Amess was lured by the island’s promise of abundant produce, while Baird has argued that he bought Churchill Island as a summer retreat for his family where ‘he could loosen his tie and enjoy the tranquillity with his family’.747 None of these depictions is particularly inaccurate with regards to detail, but PINP’s current interpretation overlooks the prevailing understandings of Churchill Island’s landscape at this time, and Baird and Cutter’s concentration on Amess and his agency as an individual have masked the extent to which Amess was affected by external forces. Amess and his family, just as much as the Pickersgill or Rogers families, were settlers, operating within a settler society, and by extension, engaged in the practice of making settler space. As this chapter notes, they did not therefore operate in isolation: they were assisted and supported in their efforts by other settlers, and by the socio-cultural, legal, economic and political structures that settlers established, maintained, and improved upon in order to better assist them in their efforts to make the kind of settler society they desired.

The success of frontier settlers in making settler spaces, both urban and rural, especially in the aftermath of the gold rush and the resultant land acts of the frontier period, brought about an increase in settlers’ confidence, both in themselves, and in the settler project. This success allowed for and encouraged more experimental and sophisticated uses of settler colonial space that went beyond farming, mining or home making.748 As Penelope Edmonds notes, ‘As settler colonial towns became incorporated and commodified spaces, as they shifted from the more fluid places of mercantilism to nodes in an increasingly industrialised economy, legislation that upheld the new spatial order was designed and enacted by town officials to regulate Aboriginal peoples

746 PINP, Churchill Island Brochure, 2003–2015. 747 Italics in Baird. Baird, History and Her Story, 44; Cutter, A Special Place, 27. 748 Geoffrey Serle’s examination of settler pride and the creation of Marvellous Melbourne during the 1880s remains a standard in Victorian history, although it has been usefully added to by numerous works. Geoffrey Serle, The Rush to be Rich, 3–8. 177 and segregate them from the white population’.749 To date little work has deliberately examined connections between alternative land uses and the increasing confidence of settlers in rural settings, possibly because farming and mining were the major means through which the inland was settled.750 But they were not the only ways through which settlement was maintained.751 Andrea Inglis’s histories on seaside and mountain retreats in Victoria and Australia respectively overt the transformations owners wrought to native vegetation and landscapes as well as the socio-cultural reasons why this occurred.752 Inglis, however, does not draw conscious connections between this practice and the continued exclusion of Indigenous peoples from these spaces, or argue that the practice of making leisured landscapes was a form of settlement. Yet, if we follow Wolfe’s argument about the nature of settlement, and Edmonds’s expansion of these arguments and those of Lefebvre, that ‘the settler colonial city was, thus, less a site than a process,’ and apply these arguments to a rural locale like Churchill Island, then it becomes possible to see how alternative land uses continued settlement through new paradigms.753

Recasting an Island as a New Kind of Settler Space

In Urbanising Frontiers, Edmonds convincingly demonstrated how formerly Indigenous spaces were transformed into settler colonial spaces through the sale of land, sales that benefitted settler colonial governments and its citizens rather than the Indigenous people whose land had been appropriated.754 By examining Churchill Island’s advertisements for sale in 1869 and 1872, it is possible to see how settler colonial spaces like Churchill Island were maintained through

749 Penelope Edmonds, Urbanising Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2010), 133. 750 In ‘Across the Great Divide: the economy of the Inland Corridor’, Lionel Frost argued that despite most British immigrants being from cities, they carried the ‘“folk memories of a departed age of rural independence”, and their act of emigration reflected a desire to live a better quality of life than was possible in the urban environments of their homelands.’ Frost, ‘Across the Great Divide’, 63. 751 Valarie Lovejoy’s article on Chinese immigrants in nineteenth century Bendigo notes that while ‘mining was the usual occupation of Chinese immigrants, Bendigo rate books from 1871–1882 reveal that the Chinese participated in sixty-three different occupations.’ Valerie Lovejoy, ‘Chinese in Late Nineteenth-Century Bendigo: Their local and translocal lives in ‘this strangers’ country, Australian Historical Studies 42, Iss.1 (March 2011): 48. 752 Andrea Scott Inglis, Good Health and Good Company: Nineteenth Century Seaside Resorts on Victoria’s Southern Coast , Masters Thesis, Department of History, University of Melbourne, 1997, 32; Andrea Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground: The Nineteenth Century Hill Station in Australia as a Manifestation of Empire PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2004, 2. 753 Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, 2; Edmonds, Urbanising Frontiers, 133. 754 ‘The settler-colonial city was, thus, less a site than a process by which Indigenous land was quickly converted to individual property allotments. Edmonds, Urbanising Frontiers, 133. 178 subsequent land sales as transfers of land between settlers, and how the selling of such spaces could set the tone for the way in which they were understood, used and valued. Using newspaper records digitised through Trove, I will demonstrate how Churchill Island was made more desirable to settler colonial buyers through its cognitive transformation from a small, well- established frontier farm, to a site that harnessed the social desires of a Victorian citizenry eager to demonstrate their social distinction.

On 24 September 1869, a small advertisement was placed in the Argus advising prospective buyers that Churchill Island was for sale.755 Describing Churchill island as ‘150 acres of fertile land’, the advertisement not only drew on the island’s potential, but also promoted its established features, noting that property came with ‘house, fruit trees & c’,756 indicating that for any prospective owner, Churchill Island required no further work from its new owner to make it both habitable and hospitable. The advertisement’s concentration on the functional aspects of the island’s potential—its house, fruit trees and soil—suggests that Churchill Island was being pitched to buyers of limited capital, desirous perhaps of the autonomy a small farm might provide, drawing on the language and politics of the preceding decade and the ideal of yeoman farming that the 1860s land acts had been designed to create.757 The clearance of both native forest and Indigenous people were implied through the inclusion of ‘& c’, which suggested that any of the usual changes required to transform an Indigenous space into a settler colonial space had already been achieved: what was for sale was an already settled landscape. Indeed, the language employed by Robert Byrne, the Collins Street estate agent promoting the property, makes no mention of any native feature, other perhaps than its soil, which might repel potential buyers.758 The end line of the 1869 advertisement is also worthy of attention, as it suggests why this understanding and valuation of Churchill Island was so substantially reworked in subsequent advertisements.

While at first glance it might be tempting to read the description of Churchill island as a ‘Delightful retreat’759 as a hint of the island’s future use as a space associated with health and leisure, when placed in context with the rest of the advertisement, it is more likely that this was a

755 Argus, 24 September, 1869, p. 8 756 Ibid. 757 Although not as successfully as its architects had hoped. Serle, The Rush to be Rich, 4–5. 758 Argus, 24 September, 1869, p. 8. 759 Ibid. 179 euphemistic way of describing the island’s isolation from its neighbours, the paucity of easy transportation and distance from Melbourne markets. While there is no direct record of how Rogers had approached the problem of moving stock from a small island in Western Port to the Mornington Peninsula or Gippsland where it could be driven to Melbourne, neighbour Georgiana McHaffie provides more detail on just how laborious and time consuming this task was. Her diary entries for 1862 highlight a four-day wait between loading wool onto a waiting ship, and its actual sailing for ‘town’,760 and entries for the following year document a nineteen-day process to obtain sheep from Melbourne which involved sending a man to ‘town’ to drove them and then a laborious crossing at the Eastern Passage between present-day San Remo and New Haven dependant on good weather and calm water.761 Gliddon’s incorporation of the recollections of Walter John Pickersgill (Winifred and Samuel Kirby Pickersgill’s eighth child,) includes a comparable account of the labour-intensive nature of loading sheep prior to the existence of a bridge linking Phillip Island with the mainland during the late nineteenth century: ‘as the boat became loaded, it had to be pushed further out. By the time the job was finished, we were working up to our waists in water’.762 The difficulty of accessing Melbourne markets for any potential yeoman farmer was therefore considerable, and in the wake of the 1869 Land Act, which Geoffrey Serle has argued was more successful than its predecessors in aiding the expansion of the small landholding class,763 and which Churchill Island owner John Rogers himself was busily taking advantage of in his relocation to western Gippsland, the description of Churchill Island as a ‘Delightful retreat’ was probably the farming equivalent of ‘renovators’ delight’.

The failed attempt to sell Churchill Island in 1869 led to a second attempt in 1872 which pitched the island in a very different light. The opening paragraph set a decidedly grand tone,

760 Georgiana McHaffie, Diary, Friday 31 January; Monday 3 February 1862. Transcript held by PIDHS. 761 Georgiana McHaffie, Diary, Monday 10 March 1873. ‘Tom Leeson starts for sheep.’ Thursday 27 March. ‘Drove to Eastern Passage, no sheep crossing.’ Friday 28 March. ‘Drove again to Eastern Passage, saw some of the sheep crossed.’ Saturday 29 March. ‘Fine but blowing and cold. 499 sheep crossed, 1 sold and 1 lost, left 497.’ Transcript held by PIDHS. 762 Gliddon, Phillip Island: In Picture and Story, 58. Walter John is given as W.J. Pickersgill in Gliddon, and recalls being fourteen at the time of the sheep loading, which given his year of birth of 1870, suggests this event occurred around 1884. Michael John O’Loughlin, ‘Descendants of Samuel Kirby Pickersgill’ Family Tree Maker The O’Loughlin Family, Perth Australia, available at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/o/l/o/Michael-J- Oloughlin/GENE6-0001.html, accessed 2 December 2014. 763 Serle, The Rush to be Rich, 4. 180 beginning ‘All that splendid Estate Known as Churchill Island’.764 As Banivanua Mar and Edmonds have argued, settlers moved to and made new settler colonies to construct ‘new and improved replicas of the societies they left’,765 and this process of replication, as Wolfe’s arguments about settlement being a structure rather than an event suggest, did not halt once settlers had established a frontier.766 Settlers, as Veracini argues, continued to import, adapt, and then impose their ideas and ideals onto other groups within settler society after the frontier period, and these ideas and ideals defined what was considered to be normal or desirable within settler society.767 Penelope Russell has demonstrated how British settlers successfully imported and adapted the ideal of land ownership, and rural land ownership in particular, as a means of marking their social distinction.768 Settlers’ success in claiming social distinction through the ownership of rural land in settler colonies, as the 1872 advertisement indicates however, was not without limits: Johnston and Lawson have argued that settler colonists still felt ‘colonial’ or socially inferior to those residing or claiming citizenship at the centre of colonial networks,769 and it is notable that Stubbs and Co’s advertisement is directed to settlers in other colonies, but not to British residents.770 The idea that the 1872 advertisement was aimed specifically at settlers who wished to demonstrate their social standing through the purchase of rural property is supported by Stubbs and Co’s explicit invitation to ‘gentlemen of independence,’ a phrase that indicates that the property was unlikely to interest the yeoman farmer with little capital.771 It does not follow, however, that the marketing of the property was limited to those who had already obtained social distinction within the colony. In the increasingly developed settler colony of Victoria, a predominantly urban group of publicans, contractors, provisioners and the like began to amass substantial fortunes as the gold rush retreated and the settler populace of Victoria

764 ‘Advertising’, Argus, 11 March 1872 p. 2 765 Banivanua Mar and Edmonds, ‘Introduction: Making Space in Settler Colonies’, 2. 766 Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, 2. 767 Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 3, 5. 768 Of the four groups Russell identified as belonging to Victoria’s self-proclaimed elite, land was a common basis for three: those who claimed descent from Britain’s landed gentry; professionals who had familial connections with substantial property owners either in Britain or in the colonies; and the squatting families, who argued that their own, often vast, land holdings, entitled them to a high social position equivalent to Britain’s landed gentry. Penelope Russell, A Wish of Distinction: Colonial Gentility and Femininity (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1994), 7. 769 Johnston and Lawson, ‘Settler Colonies’, 363. 770 Specifically in ‘Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, Adelaide and Queensland & C’. ‘Advertising’, Argus, 11 March 1872, p. 2. 771 ‘Advertising’, Argus, 11 March 1872, p. 2. 181 increasingly urbanised.772 Paul De Serville and Serle have both posited that in the post gold period, money began to talk more loudly than older ideas of gentility in terms of economic and political power,773 but as Russell has noted, the idea of gentility retained much of its importance from a cultural standpoint, and remained an important arbiter in the colony’s social scene.774 Victoria’s self-defining elite, Russell argued, ‘controlled and defined the social practices and knowledge deemed necessary for the acquisition of prestige’;775 and as De Serville has demonstrated, Victoria’s rising middle classes mimicked the behaviour and social practices of their perceived social superiors by making their homes in the suburbs or building larger and more grandiose residences in their efforts to obtain gentility.776 As well-to-do families like the Carr-Riddells and Coles continued to maintain rural properties in spite of their predominantly urban lifestyle,777 it is unsurprising that real estate agents Stubbs and Co would draw the connection between the ownership of rural property and social distinction, as indeed their use of the title Esquire to proclaim its current owner John Roger’s status as a gentleman suggests.778 The purchase of vast rural estates was expensive, however, and it is this factor that would undoubtedly have made a site as small as Churchill Island attractive to settler colonial purchasers looking to begin this process.779 This idea is supported by Stubbs and Co’s positioning of Churchill Island as being geographically ‘contiguous to the Celebrated Phillip Island’ in close proximity to the ‘Valuable Estate of John Cleeland Esq. of “our Albion” Bourke Street’,780

772 Serle, The Rush to be Rich, 6; Paul De Serville, Pounds and Pedigrees: The Upper Class in Victoria, 1850–80 (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1991), 19. 773 Serle, The Rush to be Rich, 7; De Serville, Pounds and Pedigrees, 21, 27. 774 Russell, A Wish of Distinction, 9. 775 Ibid., 7. 776 For example, following the upper class practice of making their homes in the suburbs as opposed to the city, building larger and more grandiose residences than those they sought to emulate. De Serville, Pounds and Pedigrees, 19. 777 Russell argues that the Carr-Riddells ‘still found a landed base an added security’ in their efforts to maintain their claims to gentility. Russell, A Wish of Distinction, 8. 778 ‘Advertising’, Argus, 11 March 1872, p. 2. 779 The advertisement was perhaps a little obscure on this point, presenting Churchill Island as ‘One of the most compact productive islands in the world for its size; in fact second only to Norfolk Island’ but did not go so far as to supply Churchill Island’s actual size. At 13.3 square miles, or 33.6 kilometres squared, Norfolk Island dwarfed the tiny 140 acre Churchill Island by a considerable amount, and the comparison was perhaps misleading to the unwary reader. Ibid. 780 Ibid. The Albion Hotel acted as a terminus and depot for travellers, situated, as it was adjacent to the Cobb and Co office. The popular hotel, which competed with the equally popular and perhaps better known, Bull and Mouth Hotel, for custom, was rented by Cleeland, an ex-merchant sea captain, from Melbourne’s first Lord Mayor, Henry Condell. Matt Cantlon, proprietor of the Bull and Mouth, amassed a significant fortune through the venture. ‘Famous Coach Hostel: Memories Revived, Death of Capt. Cleeland’ Argus, 28 January 1914, p. 9; Chrystopher J. 182 whose sale of his interest in the Albion in 1868 and subsequent purchase of land on Phillip Island had transformed him from a merchant of the middle classes to just the kind of gentleman of independent means the 1872 advertisement was using as an aspirational model for potential purchasers.781 For those who couldn’t afford the broad acreage traditionally required to be considered a member of the landed gentry, buying into a genteel neighbourhood was the next best option, and as the sale of Churchill Island demonstrates, this formula was applied to rural property as well as more suburban locales like Toorak or Brighton.

At first glance, the man who bought Churchill Island embodied the qualities and desires of Stubbs and Co’s target market. Samuel Amess, the son of a saw miller and farmer,782 began his adult life apprenticed to a stone mason in his native Scotland, before arriving in the Colony of Victoria in 1852, accompanied by his wife Janet nee Straughn.783 Unsurprisingly considering his date of arrival, he participated in the gold rushes, and had enough success, and perhaps business acumen, to establish a business as a building contractor the following year at the age of 27.784 Amess achieved considerable business success as a contractor and stonemason, and completed a number of prominent public buildings and structures in addition to smaller projects. These included the Melbourne General Post Office (prior to its grand 1886 re-invention), the Customs House, the old Government Printing Office, the Ballarat and Riddells Creek Railway Stations, the Exchange buildings on William Street, and numerous railway bridges, in addition to finishing the Kew Lunatic Asylum, begun by John Young.785 His behaviour at this time, reported in ‘A Rough and Ready Case’, did not adhere to the precepts of the polite world, although it did demonstrate his self-confidence and assurance in other respects. In 1856 Amess had erected a windlass in Stephen (now Exhibition) Street and carried off a ‘great number of the blocks’ by

Spicer, ‘Albion Hotel’ e-melbourne, available at http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00049b.htm, accessed 14 May 2014; De Serville, Pounds and Pedigrees, 19. 781 Phillip Island and District Historical Society, Phillip Island History Past to Present, p. 2, available online at http://121.50.208.46/bass/history_phillip_island.pdf , accessed 7 July 2010. 782 Alexander Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Volume 2B: The Colony and Its People (Melbourne: McCarron, Bird & Co., 1888), 628; Cutter, A Special Place, 21. 783 ‘Obituary’ Argus, 4 July 1898, p. 6; Cutter, Churchill Island: A Special Place, 21. 784 Ibid. Sutherland notes that Amess spent only a year on the Ballarat gold fields before returning to Melbourne to begin his contracting business. Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Past and Present, Volume 2B, 628. 785 Cutter, A Special Place, 21; ‘Obituary’, Argus, 4 July 1898, p. 6; Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Volume 2B, 628. For the completion of the Kew Asylum alone Amess was reputedly paid something in the order of £110,000, an amount which although no doubt reduced significantly by the expenses of equipment, material and labour must still be accounted a considerable sum. ‘The New Lunatic Asylum at Kew’ in Argus, 15 December 1871, p. 6; Elizabeth Malcolm, ‘Australian Asylum Architecture through German Eyes: Kew, Melbourne, 1867’, Health and History Vol. 11, no. 1 (2009): 58. 183 force with the aid of ‘friends, draymen and others’ from the subcontractor who had failed to deliver in a timely fashion, the result of which was a brawl in the middle of Melbourne’s streets.786 It was exactly the kind of money oriented behaviour that Melbourne’s self-proclaimed elite abhorred in the ranks of the newly rich,787 who included those with connections to the building trades, especially wealthy building contractors like Amess, as well as ‘tradesmen’ who ‘bore the stigmas of “the shop”’.788

Yet as Amess’s character reveals, Melbourne’s new rich were often concerned with the social and cultural life of the city they called home, even if they did not always behave according to the precepts of the polite world. Amess was heavily involved in Melbourne’s colonial bowling scene, was a long time subscriber of the ASV, served as the first president of the Builders and Contractors Association in 1873, and took a strong interest in the religious life of the colony.789 He was best known, however, for his civic contributions. In 1864 Amess was elected to the Melbourne City Council, and in 1869 joined a group of ‘conservative, self-made, commercial and professional men’ in being elected Mayor of Melbourne.790 In 1879 he was elected to serve

786 Amess’s response to the Argus’s coverage highlighted his concern that his ‘character would [have] suffer[ed] in the estimation of the Exchange Company and their Architects’ and the project been subject to penalties for untimely completion had he not acted. According to the Argus, Amess twice visited the subcontractor and fellow stonemason, Apperly’s premises in Stephen Street (later renamed Exhibition Street for the International Exhibition), and carted off a quantity of unfinished blocks, the second time by force, which were destined for the Exchange Buildings Amess was completing at the time. The Argus described the resulting fracas as a ‘siege’. In his response to the Argus’s reportage, Amess did not deny that he taken the stone by force, only the amount Apperly claimed he was due, describing Apperly as akin to ‘the dog in the manger’. ‘A Rough and Ready Case’, Argus, 3 October 1856, p. 5; ‘A Rough and Ready Case: To the Editor of the Argus’, Argus, 4 October 1856, p.5; Andrew May, ‘Street Names’ e-melbourne, available at http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01433b.htm, accessed 14 April 2015. 787 To the new rich, ‘Money mattered more than manners, pounds than pedigrees’. De Serville has argued the new rich included ‘Merchants, shopkeepers, contractors, craftsmen, hoteliers, provisioners and speculators’. De Serville, Pounds and Pedigrees, 19, 20–21, 25, 27–8. 788 ‘Tradesmen’ was specifically used to reference those who had earned their fortunes through retail rather than land, wool, select professions or mercantile interests. Russell, A Wish of Distinction, 4, 8. 789 He was a long-time member of the West Melbourne Bowling Club. In 1867 he served as the president of a conference to codify the game in Australia and in 1880 made a further contribution as the foundation president of the Victoria Bowling Association. According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Amess was a long-time member of the West Melbourne Presbyterian Church, although the VGG suggests that Amess may have been a Wesleyan, rather than a Presbyterian, recording his appointment as the trustee for land set aside for the Wesleyan Church at Parkside, North Melbourne in 1866. J. Ann Hone, ‘Samuel Amess 1826–1898’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 3 (Melbourne University Press, 1969), 29; VGG no. 47, 24 April 1866, 887; Cutter, A Special Place, 24. Amess’s Bible, which does not record his denomination, forms part of the archival collection at Churchill Island. CIA, Churchill Island Collection. 790 Hone, ‘Samuel Amess 1826–1898’, ADB, Volume 3, 29; David Dunstan, ‘Mayoralty’ in e-melbourne, available at http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00910b.htm, accessed 14 April 2015. See also Dunstan, David, Governing the Metropolis: Politics, Technology and Social Change in a Victorian City: Melbourne 1850–1891 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1984). 184 as Alderman. Holding the office of Mayor was not, as De Serville pointed out in Pounds and Pedigrees, something which gentrified its holders,791 but rather, as David Dunstan put it, ‘capped a successful business career and reflected public esteem’.792 Indeed, the Argus prophesied that under Amess’s governance ‘the refinements of magisterial demeanour may not always be scrupulously observed…and that Mansion-house hospitalities may lack the polish which a descendent of the Vere de Vere caste would attach to them’, but that his accession to the office was desirable because he was a ‘man of the people in the best sense of the term—not telling the people that they are trodden under foot and oppressed by an oligarchic clique, but proving to them in his own person the falsity of such preachings’.793 Amess’s practicality, work ethic, and eventual attainment of ‘private opulence and public respect’, together with his rising social position,794 personified the kind of investor that Stubbs and Co were targeting. The only problem with this theory is that by the time Amess purchased Churchill Island in 1872, he had already obtained some of the characteristics that would help obscure and eventually replace the reputation that had dogged him after the events in Stephen Street.

Amess’s purchase of rural land to Melbourne’s northwest and his behaviour whilst Mayor of Melbourne suggests that while he was not considered to be a member of the social elite by the 1870s, he began to enjoy far greater social respect than had been the case during the 1850s when the Argus had published ‘A Rough and Ready Case’, or later in the 1860s when it predicted the likely tone of his time as Mayor. In contrast to the Argus’s predictions, Amess’s time as Melbourne’s Mayor demonstrated social leadership, wealth, public munificence and taste. Amess’s sponsoring of the opening of the Melbourne Town Hall might have reflected poorly if Amess had demonstrated the bad form to highlight the huge outlay of the events he was funding out of his own pocket,795 which included commissioning a cantata by Henry Kendall, its performance and, a fancy dress ball catering for up to 4000 guests;796 or expected that his

791 Indeed, De Serville argued that ‘the more public the figure, the less likely a gentleman.’ De Serville, Pounds and Pedigrees, x, 210–12. 792 David Dunstan, ‘Mayoralty’ in e-melbourne, available at http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00910b.htm, accessed 14 April 2015. 793 Argus, 10 November 1869, p. 4. 794 Ibid. 795 ‘Mr. Samuel Amess undertook that the whole expense of the ceremonial and accompanying festivities should be borne by himself’. ‘Opening of the New Town Hall: The Inauguration’ Argus, 10 August 1870, p. 5–6. According to his obituary Amess spent £800 alone on the cantata composed expressly for the event. ‘Death of Alderman Amess’ in Argus, 4 July 1898, p. 6. 796 Ibid. 185 family’s place of honour at the ball (at what was a decidedly ‘mixed’ event)797 or the gift of a mayoral chain set with diamonds (from a group representing a public meeting of the citizens of Melbourne) would have raised his social standing.798 Instead, Amess’s approach when speaking of his decision to bear the entire cost was humble,799 and drew attention away from the vast sum he was defraying, as did his decision to wear the Mayor’s robes to the fancy dress ball instead of a grander costume. These performances adhered to the Melbourne gentry’s ideals on correct and tasteful behaviour, clearly demonstrating an improved knowledge of social codes though his emphasis of his position rather than his wealth.800 Amess’s adept performance of social grace during his term as Mayor was supported by more substantial investments in rural property. According to Cutter, Amess’s first rural land purchase was in 1858, when he purchased property in Parish of Havelock, near Bolinda. The two blocks purchased by Amess, numbers 4 and 17, comprised of 104 and 105 acres respectively, and are shown on a Parish of Havelock map completed between 1880 and 1890.801 In 1860, Amess purchased more property only a few miles to the southwest in the neighbouring Parish of Kerrie at Riddell’s Creek, named for the Carr- Riddells mentioned above, and a map showing the Parish of Kerrie shows a considerable portion of land under Samuel Amess’s name by 1880; a total of 680 acres.802 While this amount of land

797 The fancy dress ball was notable for its enormous size, and was not therefore a select event. According to the Argus attendees included the ‘merchant and politician, the portly banker and his spruce clerk, the Cabinet Minister and the latest fledgling of the Tape and Sealing-Wax Department, the acute lawyer and more knowing sharebroker, the squatter-lord and plain well-to-do agriculturist, the fashionable doer of the “block” and the sober hearty tradesman, and the representatives of far more classes than we have space to mention’. Indeed, the infamous behaviour of some Melbournians who desired to attend, but had failed to secure tickets and resorted to a range of stratagems in order to obtain them became one of its more memorable aspects. Russell has argued that the ‘determined jostling for tickets lay outside the codes of gentility,’ and illustrated the extent to which mayoral balls like Amess’s were ‘mixed’, rather than genteel affairs. According to Russell mixture or mixed were words frequently used by the upper class to describe company not solely comprised of their own class. ‘The Opening of the Melbourne Town Hall. The Fancy Dress Ball’ Argus, 9 August 1870, p. 4; ‘Opening of the New Town Hall: The Inauguration’ Argus, 10 August 1870, p. 6; Argus 18 August 1870, p. 2; Russell, A Wish of Distinction, 64, 71, 72. The banquet organised for the ball is recorded in Alessandro Filippini’s book, alongside dinners for royalty, consuls and presidents. Alessandro Fillippini, The Table: How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It (Charles Webster and Co., 1889), 1394. 798 ‘Opening of the New Town Hall: The Inauguration’ Argus, 10 August 1870, p. 6. 799 Amess described his sponsorship of the celebrations as a ‘simple act of duty’, ensuring the event was suitably grand, and untainted by arguments about the amount of public money to be spent. Ibid. 800 Russell noted that members of Melbourne’s self-proclaimed gentry attending the fancy dress ball took care not to display their wealth, but rather their knowledge and taste, and that the wearing of uniforms by men was one way to avoid displays of wealth while proclaiming one’s power. Russell, A Wish of Distinction, 84. 801 Victoria. Dept. of Crown Lands and Survey, Parish of Havelock, (1880–1890), available online at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm2741-97, accessed 15 May 2013. 802 Blocks 6, 7, 8, 12, 13 and 15 (80, 83, 40, 86, 84 and 44 acres respectively) east of the township of Riddell are all marked as S. Amess, as are a number of much smaller blocks to the south west of the township (blocks 100, 101, 102, and 103 at 15, 13, 16, and 10 acres respectively). Victoria, Dept. of Crown Lands and Survey, Parish of Kerrie 186 did not guarantee entrée into polite society, since a gentleman usually owned in excess of 1000 acres, the potential for Amess’s future candidature of Melbourne’s colonial gentry, or more likely the candidature of his children who would not have to bear the ‘stigma of the shop’, was clearly apparent.803 Under these circumstances, Churchill Island was a useful adjunct rather than an essential item in securing Amess’s social reputation in the manner that real estate agents Stubbs and Co were arguing was the chief quality of the island.

Contesting the Detail: Tracing Churchill Island’s Historical Landscape

As I noted in Chapter One, one of the things that the Churchill Island Community and PINP greatly desired this thesis to achieve was a detailed analysis of Churchill Island’s history and a certain amount of fact checking. This desire for fact checking, a feature of history that tends to be of less interest in academic circles where the alteration of minor details rarely impacts upon the shape of general arguments, methodologies or theories,804 has been noted by Graeme Davison as one of the hallmarks of local and family history.805 Dismissing the Churchill Island Community and PINP’s concerns as trivial, or of being of interest only to these public stakeholders, however, undervalues the extent to which such details continue to function as the bricks and mortar of heritage classification: as Brady pointed out in her presentation to FOCIS, my research has problematised Churchill Island’s classification as a heritage site, not because it is necessarily unworthy in a general sense, but because it now no longer fits easily into classifications like unique or rare that are required to obtain protection at a state level (with the exception of the 1801 visit by the British, which is notable for its occurrence at such an early

(1880 –1890). Available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm2741-102, accessed 15 May 2013. It should be noted that Amess had sold block 12 by 1894, when the next parish map of Kerrie was produced. Victoria. Dept. of Crown Lands and Survey, Kerrie, County of Bourke, (1894). Available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.map- rm2741-101, accessed 15 May 2013. 803 That is, high sticklers who could afford to make social enemies, usually because they could claim connections to the British gentry or aristocracy, which as Johnston and Lawson suggest, trumped colonial society; or because they owned truly vast swathes of land (ie thousands or tens of thousands of acres). Sutherland’s list of principal landholders does not record anyone who owned less than 1000 acres. Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis, Volume 2A, 39, 93, 149, 175, 217, 230, 291, 322, 334, 360, 405, 417. 804 Indeed, Macintyre has argued that getting every single fact right was very difficult, and less important than getting one’s interpretation right, but that this view was challenged during the History Wars by protagonists like Windschuttle. Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 159. 805 Davison, The Use and Abuse of Australian History, 84. 187 point in the annals of colonial coastal exploration and landscape alteration in Australia).806 In such a context, PINP and the Churchill Island Community’s desire for fact checking is very reasonable, since they cannot protect or manage the site’s heritage features in an authoritative or authentic manner without detailed and rigorous historical research.807

In her presentation to FOCIS, Brady noted that Churchill Island’s Statement of Significance was ‘woefully out of date’; something PINP and the Churchill Island Community may not have been consciously aware of, but would certainly have agreed with if they had read it. Churchill Island’s Statement of Significance on the Victorian Heritage Register still states that ‘The present, symmetrical weatherboard homestead dates possibly from the 1860s, parts may be older’.808 Both Cutter and Baird’s histories of Churchill Island, however, clearly assert that it was the cottages, not the main house that dates from the 1860s, and as I noted in Chapter Three, the VCT, and local Phillip Island residents, also knew that this was the case at the time of VCT’s first attempt to purchase Churchill Island.809 Lewis has posited that the main house, now known as the homestead, was built in stages from 1872 and completed sometime in the 1880s on the basis of its materials and style of construction.810 This theory is supported by Michael Taylor’s conservation analysis, which noted that the parish rates due for the property between 1872 and 1873 increased by twenty pounds, from £30 to £50, positing that the rate increase was due to Amess’s construction of a ‘homestead’ and the subsequent increase in the property’s value.811 The HCV’s further assertion that ‘The present homestead is representative of homestead building and is unusual for its planning’,812 is equally problematic: in addition to being contradictory it is

806 Anita Brady, ‘Presentation of Lovell Chen’s progress on drafting a Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island’, Field Notes, FOCIS meeting, Churchill Island, 14 February 2015. 807 As indeed the Burra Charter argues. 808 HCV, ‘Churchill Island’ in Victorian Heritage Database, Victorian Heritage Register Number H1614, Transferred to the Victorian Heritage Register 23 May 1998, available at vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/reports/report_place/4852, accessed 16 February 2015. 809 ‘Council Wants to Buy Churchill Island’ South Gippsland Sentinel-Times, 5 April, 1973. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 810 Lewis’s analysis of the roof of the main house suggests that rooms 2 and 10 were latter additions, as were the bay window additions on each end of the house Lewis, Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft, 14. 811 ‘District of Phillip Island Rate Books, 1872 and 1873, Records department, Bass Coast Shire in Michael Taylor and Mary Sheehan, Conservation Analysis: Churchill Island Homestead, Churchill Island, Victoria (Camberwell: Michael Taylor, Architect and Conservation Consultant, Prepared for Historic Places, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, May 1997), 13. See also Rate Books, Shire of Mornington, Phillip Island1872, 1873, 1874. PROV, VPRS 11215, P0001, unit 1. 812 HCV, ‘Churchill Island’ in Victorian Heritage Database, Victorian Heritage Register Number H1614, Transferred to the Victorian Heritage Register 23 May 1998, available at vhd.heritage.vic.gov.au/reports/report_place/4852, accessed 16 February 2015. 188 based on more recent valuations and understandings of this building.813 Comparison between the main house and other buildings in the Colony of Victoria dating from the second half of the nineteenth century shows that the building very clearly differs from the style of overgrown homesteads at Derriweit Heights and Ard Choille at Mount Macedon.814 Indeed, the Italianate design of the house is remarkably similar to that recorded in a photograph by Charles Walker taken of an unidentified Melbourne suburban villa in 1888, although Amess’s house is built in wood, rather than brick.815 According to Richard Aitken, houses deemed larger than a cottage, possessing a garden setting but without the vast expanse of paddock and orchard that demarcated the mansion estate are best described as villas,816 and the rural Italianate house, set within the small garden shown in Fig. 16 very neatly fits within Aitken’s definition. The choice of an Italianate style rather than the more usual homestead common in rural locales is worth noting since its more usual setting was the suburbs. Amess’s choice of this style was presumably deliberate, and may have represented a conscious or possibly unconscious desire to reference the source of Amess’s wealth, and his identity as a man of the ‘city’. The small size of the house, considering the substantial size of Amess’s fortune is also notable. If this was a statement designed to reflect attention away from Amess’s wealth, and towards his acquisition of taste (restraint being the hallmark of true elegance), its coupling with the Italianate style must be considered odd had the intent been to proclaim Amess’s position in the top tier of Melbourne society. Considering Amess’s character as a practical and possibly straightforward individual, it is possible that the mixing of these different elements was deliberate, accurately reflecting Amess’s social standing as a man no longer of the people, but neither a member of Melbourne’s more exclusive social circles who desired to present themselves as the colony’s equivalent of Britain’s landed gentry.

813 ‘Council Wants to Buy Churchill Island’ South Gippsland Sentinel-Times, 5 April, 1973. CIA, VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of. 814 Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground, 169, 171. 815 An architectural historian described the house built by Amess, apart from the unusual communication along the verandas as rural Italianate. Cutter, A Special Place, 28; Charles B. Walker Elevated view of a Victorian villa, showing brick residence with slate roof and two bay windows and garden layout, c1888 Pictures Collection State Library of Victoria, H81.111 in Richard Aitken, Gardenesque: A Celebration of Australian Gardening (Carlton: Miegunyah Press, 2004), 100. 816 Aitken, Gardenesque, 100. 189

Fig. 17 Amess family in front of the house and its gardens. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

No photographs exist to document the interior of the main house built during Amess’s ownership, and sketches completed by frequent visitor Minnie Laurence between 1900 and 1912 capture little more than the occasional piece of furniture her subject was seated on. Her cousin and Amess’s granddaughter, Marjorie Amess, however, provides some information in a piece submitted to The Australasian in 1907. Marjorie Amess noted that the house contained seven rooms in total, and supplied information that there were two bedrooms away from the house for bachelors, referred to as the ‘“barracks”’.817 Whether these refer to one of the cottages currently interpreted as servants’ lodgings or another unknown building is uncertain. Material evidence obtained during Paperhangings’s restoration of the interior indicates that the inside of the

817 Marjorie Amess, ‘Churchill Island’, The Australasian, 9 March 1907, p.56. Baird notes that Marjorie Amess and Minnie were cousins. Baird, History and Her Story, 47. Marjorie Amess was a grandchild of Samuel and Janet Amess, and fourth child of their son, John W.B and his wife Isabella, of Bolinda Park. ‘Deaths’ Argus, 8 August 1942, p. 18. 190 house’s walls were decorated in myriad wallpapers, which covered the walls’ hessian lining.818 Floors were polished wood, and may have been covered with rugs or carpets as was the fashion during this period. The large room to the east of the house would most likely have been formal, and communal in nature, used perhaps as a dining room, or possibly a billiard room, as oral interviews recorded by Cutter state was the case in the twentieth century.819 The smaller room adjoining it and opening directly onto the front veranda may have been dedicated as a withdrawing room for the ladies of the house, its smaller proportions evoking their contained and constraining clothing, or indeed lives of those who made the most use of it.820 The dimensions of the room on the western side of the house’s front veranda, which are slightly less than half that of the dining/billiard room on the east, but far larger than the small room I have suggested was used as a withdrawing room, are suggestive that it served as the main house’s parlour, and perhaps doubled as a music room. Amess’s interest in fine music has been suggested in his munificent sponsorship of a cantata for the opening of the Melbourne Town Hall,821 and Minnie Laurence’s sketchbook from the turn of the century records a young girl seated at an upright piano, which suggests that a piano at least was a permanent fixture in the house, although its date of installation is unknown.822 The second room from the rear of the house, with its stove, clearly functioned as the kitchen, and presumably most of the remaining rooms in the villa would have been used as guestrooms for married couples and single ladies as Marjorie Amess’s description of her regular visits some thirty years later testifies.823

One of the reasons why both PINP and FOCIS desired fact checking to be part of this thesis was their knowledge that the provenance of the cannon on Churchill Island, once used as the island’s logo, was incorrect.824 The HCV’s Statement of Significance on Churchill Island still argues that the cannon was originally from ‘the warship Shenandoah (1865)’, but this has been known to be untrue in the Churchill Island Community for some time, although as FOCIS

818 CIA, PINP Homestead Restoration—Paperhangings Files. 819 Cutter, A Special Place, 46. 820 Laurence’s sketchbook captures women completing a number of traditional feminine activities at Churchill Island including needlepoint, painting, playing the piano and card games and making either billy tea or some kind of meal over a camp fire. None of the sketches or photographs show the women engaged in shooting, or other traditional masculine activities, although they did witness Amess firing his cannon. Churchill Island Collection care of Patricia Baird, in Baird, History and Her Story, 50, 53, 55, 57. 821 ‘Opening of the New Town Hall: The Inauguration’ Argus, 10 August 1870, p. 5–6. 822 Churchill Island Collection care of Patricia Baird, in Baird, History and Her Story, 50. 823 Amess, ‘Churchill Island’, The Australasian, 9 March 1907, p.56. 824 Email from Andrew May to Eileen Rebecca Sanders, Churchill Island, 14 March 2007. 191 member and volunteer guide on Churchill Island, David Maunders, has noted, some PINP guides and bus tours still tell visitors that this was the case.825 Photographs from the DCNR’s collection demonstrate that the cannon was certainly a beloved feature during Samuel Amess’s ownership; the positioning of the cannon adjacent to the flagpole and in front of the main house is a prominent one, designed to showcase what was obviously a prized possession. There is little other positive information about it, however. According to oral memory, the cannon was a gift to Amess from Captain Waddell of the Shenandoah, a Confederate ship which visited Melbourne in 1865,826 a story I have traced back as far as Marjorie Amess, and her article in the Australasian in 1907.827 Baird notes in her history that Amess ‘family lore’ has it that the cannon was a gift from Captain Waddell in return for Amess’s generous hospitality, although she also notes that Amess’s neighbour, John Cleeland, argued that the cannon had originally been presented to him by Waddell, and that he later gave it to Amess.828

825 Comments by David Maunders at Completion Seminar, 9 March 2015, University of Melbourne. 826 David Maunders, The Churchill Island Cannon: History and Mystery, 3. CIA, FOCIS File. 827 ‘We have a large cannon in the orchard, which belonged to the American War Ship Shenandoah, and was given to my grandfather by a friend.’ Amess, ‘Churchill Island’, The Australasian, 9 March 1907, p.56. 828 Baird notes Cleeland had run a horse called Shenandoah which he ran in confederate colours in 1865. Baird, History and Her Story, 46–7.The painting of the horse Shenandoah can still be seen at the smaller Cleeland home in Newhaven. Interview with Harry Cleeland, Phillip Island, 24 July 2007, Part Three. 192

Fig. 18 Amess posing with his cannon. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

The American Civil War Round Table of Australia, which convened in 1981, however, stated categorically that as no six pounder cannons were carried by the Shenandoah, and that the story of Amess (or indeed anyone else) receiving one therefore could not possibly be true.829 Their suggestion that the cannon must have been one of the cannons brought to the Western Port Settlement of 1826 has been rejected by Ray Fielding, the Curator of Arms at the Melbourne Science Museum.830 According to Fielding, not only were all of the cannons from the abortive settlement returned to Sydney, but they were also far larger than the cannon which still guards the front of the main house.831 Fielding did note that the cannon was ‘consistent with the type found on merchant vessels from the period’.832 Tony Dunlap, who was commissioned by the VCT to research the origins of the cannon, concluded that the cannon was of Confederate manufacture, although Fielding advised that this was not possible to prove, and that mid

829 American Civil War Round Table of Australia to the Victorian Conservation Trust, 17 August 1981, CIA, VCT, Cannon File Part 1. 830 Ibid. 831 Ibid. 832 Ray Fielding to the VCT, 18 March 1982, in Ibid. 193 nineteenth century manufacture was a sounder conclusion.833 William C. Wright, an historical archaeologist, however, has argued that the cannon was of European manufacture and that the tube was Prussian, citing the letters ‘F Reck’ marked on its side as evidence it was produced during the reign of Fredrick IV. He also argued that the ‘cheeks and trunnion caps are definitely of European origin’.834 In short, there is no consensus on the origin of the cannon, other than that it was probably manufactured sometime around the middle of the nineteenth century.835

My own research has unearthed that Amess’s hospitality was not for the men of the Shenandoah, but the ‘Flying Squadron’ of the British Royal Navy.836 A letter to the Argus editor attached to Samuel Amess’s obituary by E.G. FitzGibbon837 recorded Amess’s hospitality of the Squadron’s commanding officer Admiral Hornby and the other officers of the Flying Squadron, as does a published account of the voyage. Amess, as Mayor, sponsored a journey to the Dandenongs’ ferny glades for a picnic on behalf of the Melbourne City Council.838 While FitzGibbon made much of Amess’s hospitality, particularly his defraying of the cost of organising a journey to Melbourne’s forest glades in the Dandenongs, which was so expensive due to the large amount of horseflesh required, John Bate’s published account was less impressed, noting that the journey was uncomfortable due to the poor condition of the road, and was only one of many entertainments put on for the officers of the Flying Squadron during their tour.839 None of these accounts mentions anything about a cannon being presented to Amess for

833 Maunders, The Churchill Island Cannon, 7. 834 William C. Wright, Historical Archaeologist, Department of Archives and History, State of Mississippi to Victorian Conservation Trust, 22 October 1982, CIA, VCT, Cannon File Part 1. 835 Maunders, The Churchill Island Cannon, 7. 836 The squadron comprised the Frigates Liverpool, Liffy, Endymion and Bristol and Corvettes Scylla and Barossa. Its purpose was ‘the display of the British Flag in a detached squadron in the distant parts of the world’ to facilitate ‘withdrawal’ of most British Ships on ‘foreign stations’ in order to ease British budgetary pressure, then undergoing a ‘rage for economy.’ John Bate and F.C. Cavendish, The Cruise around the World of the Flying Squadron, 1869– 1870: Under the command of Rear Admiral G.T. Phipps Hornby (Tower Hill: J.D. Potter, Admiralty Chart Agent, 1871), 1–2. 837 Edmund Gerald FitzGibbon had served as the Town Clerk for the Melbourne City Council, and been instrumental in the creation of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, on which he served as a full time chairman. Bernard Barrett, ‘FitzGibbon, Edmund Gerald (1825–1905)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, 4 (Melbourne University Press, 1972), 181–182. 838 FitzGibbon’s recitation of Amess’s hospitality towards the Admiral and officers and other guests recounted how Amess organised and paid for a party of seventy vehicles to be transported to a ‘sumptuous picnic in Ferntree Gully’. E.G. FitzGibbon, ‘To the Editor of the Argus’ Argus, 4 July 1898, p. 6; Bate and F.C. Cavendish, The Cruise around the World of the Flying Squadron, 1869–1870, 1–2, 81–2. 839 E.G. FitzGibbon, ‘To the Editor of the Argus’ Argus, 4 July 1898, p. 6. ‘The Flying Squadron’, Argus, 29 November 1869, p. 6; Argus 1 December 1869, p. 5;‘Review of the Flying Squadron’ Argus, 6 December, 1869, p. 5; Bate and F.C. Cavendish, The Cruise around the World of the Flying Squadron, 1869–1870, 81–5. 194 his sponsorship of the picnic, nor do the original newspaper articles from the event. While this event would seem to be a better fit for the tale of Amess providing hospitality to a visiting ship, it does not therefore resolve the origin of the cannon, which remains a mystery.

Making a Settler Colonial Leisure Space

In Chapter Three, I argued that Churchill Island’s landscapes could be read as texts that narrated an identified general public’s relationship with ‘History’. In doing so I identified two different interpretations of Churchill Island that utilised features dating largely from the 1870s: the wealthy man’s holiday home and the most recent interpretation of the heritage farm, so well received by both the local community and international tourists. As the following analysis will demonstrate, O’Neil’s late 1990s interpretation for PINP matches the historical record rather better than the more recent interpretation of the site as a heritage farm, although it can be improved with a more detailed understanding of the relationship between health and leisure in the late nineteenth century. Cutter has suggested that Amess’s intentions were essentially domestic with regard to Churchill Island and centred around the ideals of the family life— ‘building a home, making a garden, planting an orchard and spending warm sunny days with his children and grandchildren’.840 Comprehensive analysis of the 1880s photograph collection, newspaper articles and periodicals from the time, however, suggests that this description falls far short of the way in which Amess and his family valued and used Churchill Island, although this aspect was certainly present as Fig.19 illustrates.

840 Cutter, A Special Place, 27. 195

Fig. 19. Child proudly assists with ‘chores’. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

In Australia, many city residents with the means to do so sought to leave its dangerous environs and escape to safer sites, either by permanently relocating to the healthier suburbs, or by taking holidays to avoid outbreaks of disease.841 In this they mimicked patterns already established in industrial Britain, where factory owners and the well-to-do generally preferred to reside in the semi-rural surrounds of the great northern manufacturing towns, which became the sole residence of their workers and the poor.842 Yet, as the example of Samuel Amess proves, not everyone who could afford to leave the confines of the city chose to do so, something urban

841 Inglis, Good Health and Good Company, 7–8, 16. 842 Stephen Alome, Weston Bate, David Dunstan, Diana Macmillan, Graeme Kinross Smith and Shurlee Swain, The Australian City: Unit A Marvellous Melbourne. A Study of Nineteenth-Century Urban Growth (Burwood: Deakin University, 1978, revised, 1986), 91–2. In Australia this trend of leaving the city for the suburbs was supported by the development of public transport, and from the 1870s train and tram lines increasingly transported not only the well to do, but also the solid middle class from their suburban homes to their city place of employment and back again, while their wives and families remained safely ensconced in the healthy surrounds beyond the city. Lionel Frost, Australian Cities in Comparative View (South Yarra: McPhee Gribble, 1990), 23; Clive Forster, Australian Cities: Continuity and Change Second Edition (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1999), 11. 196 historians have tended to neglect in their eagerness to chart the history of suburban sprawl.843 For men like Amess, who chose to remain a resident of the urban environment but possessed the wealth to escape it, a place like Churchill Island, where he could escape the stress and cares of civic duty, his business and the city’s unhealthy environs, was considered very beneficial.

Health and Leisure

Andrea Inglis has argued that by the late 1860s the practice of withdrawing from the more usual settings of town or pastoral station and removing to the seaside was well entrenched amongst Victoria’s self-proclaimed gentry and prosperous middle classes,844 and that this practice of removing to scenic locales was extended to Mount Macedon’s cooler climes by these same wealthy Melbournians and pastoralists from 1869.845 In her work, Inglis convincingly demonstrated that the practice of withdrawing to seaside or mountain locales in the Australian colonies drew heavily on the older European practice of removing to the spa town, both in a socio-cultural sense as well as a medical one.846 The healthful retreat or health resort as a medical (as opposed to religious) practice began in the early modern era with the rise of the spa town, which promoted the health giving properties of its mineral springs.847 In Britain the continuation of spa culture in the new spaces of the seaside and later mountain retreats ensured that these locales were understood and used very differently to the manner in which they would later be viewed in twentieth century. The seaside environment was at first used much like the spa environment, with seawater being bathed in and imbibed, as was the case with mineral water at

843 Frost, Australian Cities in Comparative View, 25–29. 844 Inglis, Good Health and Good Company, 78. According to Mary Cable, the phenomenon began somewhat later in the United States, where the desire to escape to ‘summer places’ was first evinced by Bostonians in Newport in the 1880s, copying the example of ‘the Mrs Astor’. Mary Cable, Top Drawer: American High Society from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties (New York: Atheneum, 1984), 136. 845 Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground, 2. 846 Inglis, Good Health and Good Company, 4, 15; Claiming the Higher Ground, 1, 11. 847 In his landmark work on the history of the English holiday John Alfred Ralph Pimlott argued that although the English had been visiting mineral springs prior to the accession of Charles II, it was during his reign that the secularisation of the practice began. Pimlott argued that although the practice of the spa retreat preceded the accession of Charles II, his reign was the beginning of an age of ‘frivolity and pleasure’, and that the second half of the seventeenth century was notable for the discovery of ‘more than a hundred mineral springs’, which essentially established the new, secular fashion for mineral springs among the leisured classes. John Alfred Ralph Pimlott, The Englishman’s Holiday: A Social History (Sussex: The Harvester Press, 1976, First edition published Faber and Faber Limited, 1947), 29, 26–29. See also John K. Walton The English Seaside Resort: A Social History 1750–1914 (New York: Leicester University Press, 1983), 7, 9; Phyllis Hembry, British Spas from 1815 to the Present (London: The Arthlone Press). 197 various spas.848 During the course of the nineteenth century, however, air and climate became fashionable medical preoccupations, and sea and mountain air began to be heavily promoted for its health giving properties, as did their respective climates.849 As the practice of locating health developed, detailed theories began to explore the specific health giving properties of different environments.850 Environmental qualities including temperature, humidity, air pressure, air quality and even soil type, in conjunction with the geographical categories of the inland, coastal, elevated and sea level spaces, were examined through a medical gaze, which projected its preoccupation with disease onto various locales.851 These British theories about health and environment were later imported and adapted to settler colonial needs.

In the colonial instance, the benefits of sea or mountain climates tended to be promoted as being cooler or more temperate, and either offered relief from the heat of summer, or provided a refuge for the sick in winter.852 Inglis argued that during the nineteenth century the seaside was the ‘chilly preserve of the affluent health seeker, the consumptive invalid, the aged or the infirm’.853 The relatively cool and pure salt laden air of the seaside at St Kilda and Sorrento, and also the cool, elevated mountain climbs of Mount Macedon and the Dandenongs were thus considered particularly healthful alternatives to the hot, close and noisome air of Melbourne.854 Churchill Island’s description in Men of the Time in Australia: Victorian Series, as ‘a little sea girt retreat’,855 suggests that Amess’s utilisation of Churchill Island was understood during the 1880s as analogous to the fashionable use of Port Phillip seaside locales like Lorne, Queenscliff and Sorrento. An article appearing in the Argus entitled ‘Picturesque Victoria’ further supports

848 Pimlott, The Englishman’s Holiday, 56–7, 64. 849 Ibid. 106, 111. 850 The idea that a relationship existed between environment and health had been enshrined in Western philosophy with the publication of Hippocrates’s Air, Water and Places, whose ideas were rediscovered and popularised during the renaissance. Roy MacLeod and Milton Lewis, eds, Disease, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and the Experience of European Expansion (London; New York, Routledge, 1988), 182. 851 Ibid., 183. 852 In winter, the mild climate offered at seaside locations was thought by colonial doctors to be beneficial, not so much because it was warmer, but because it offered invalids a climate that varied less in temperature. Inglis, Good Health and Good Company, 43. In Britain and the Mediterranean, the warm, dry climates of the seaside locales like Brighton, Torquay, Rome, Mentone, San Remo and Nice were popular antidotes for the enervated urban dweller who had been exhausted by the environment (both physically and culturally) of the metropolis and required a restorative or calming climate. John Pemble, A Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 92–3. 853 Inglis, Good Health and Good Company, 15. 854 Ibid., 53. 855 H. Morin Humpries, Men of the Time in Australia: Victorian Series, Second Edition (Melbourne: McCarron, Bird and Co., 1882), 3. 198 this contention, noting that on the island Samuel Amess ‘enjoyed a fine, free, hospitable life in as pleasant and healthful a situation as could be found in the world.’856

The tide races past him down the eastern channel, fresh breezes from the ocean and the shore bring him perpetual instalments of health, and no matter what quarter a too fierce wind may come, one side of his island estate will always be sheltered.857

The ‘perpetual instalments of health’ referred to here was a reference to popular medical discourse of the time, which held that ozone or sea air was particularly healthful.858 Dr S.D. Bird was a particularly strong advocate of the restorative nature of seaside air, arguing that consumptives in particular should spend as much time as possible in the ‘pure, dry bracing air’ of the seashore.859 Churchill Island, however, was unlikely to have been utilised by Amess and his family to relieve consumption; leaving aside Amess’s active involvement in civic life, doctors in Europe had been recommending tonic climates for this complaint since the 1860s,860 and Churchill Island’s climate was presumably not much different to neighbouring Phillip Island, which was described in Picturesque Victoria and How to Get There as mild in both summer and winter, and ‘strongly recommended by the medical profession by those who find it necessary to recuperate’.861 This supports the contention that Samuel Amess and his family understood and valued Churchill Island not only for its ability to host family gatherings, but for its mild climate and good supply of salt laden air, that together with the opportunity of a ‘change of scene,’ could

856 ‘Picturesque Victoria: Phillip Island’, Argus, 10 March 1888, p. 5. 857 Ibid. 858 Salty seaside air was sometimes promoted as being particularly beneficial to bronchial complaints, although sufferers of a range of maladies were recommended in Ludwig Bruck’s Guide to the Health Resorts of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand to attend different sites to obtain cures or restoratives for different problems. The emphasis on the freshness of the air was a result of the sanitary movement, and the belief popular amongst medical professionals that miasmas were the primary cause of ill health for much of the nineteenth century. It was a theory which particularly appealed in Britain and its colonies, and many continued to adhere to miasmic theory long after continental Europe accepted the primacy of germ theory. Germ theory was first promoted by Louis Pasteur in 1862 and later proved by Robert Koch in 1876. Ludwig Bruck, Bruck’s Guide to the Health Resorts of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand (Sydney: Published at the Australasian Medical Gazette, 1888); Inglis, Good Health and Good Company, 35; MacLeod and Lewis, eds, Disease, Medicine and Empire, 182; Tony S. Pensabene, The Rise of the Medical Practitioner in Victoria (Canberra: Australian National University, 1980), 22, 42–3. 859 Inglis, Good Health and Good Company, 44. 860 Pemble, A Mediterranean Passion, 94. 861 Victoria Railway Department, Picturesque Victoria, and How to Get There: A Handbook for Tourists, Containing General Information Regarding the Summer Resorts Rail, Coaches, Steam-Boats, Fares, etc. (Melbourne : Victoria Railway Department, 1987), 27. See also ‘Picturesque Victoria’ in Argus, 10 March 1888, p. 5. 199 assist in relieving the pressures of a busy life and Melbourne’s unpleasant atmosphere in summer.862

Making a Healthful Leisured Landscape

The timing of Amess’s purchase, which occurred at the same time Mount Macedon had begun to attract the attention of Victoria’s social elite, and photographs from the DCNR’s collection, however, are suggestive that Mount Macedon’s mountain landscapes may have provided Amess with greater inspiration in shaping Churchill Island’s landscape than the watering places of St Kilda Sorrento or Queenscliff, which looked to urban rather than rural paradigms.863 Comparisons between these early incarnations of mountain retreats in the Australian colonies and Churchill Island suggest that they shared many common landscape features: the creeper covered veranda of Amess’s summer residence and its small, house garden bears remarkable resemblance to that of a residence and garden in Toowoomba, Queensland’s mountain retreat, and indeed the original Governor’s Cottage at Mount Macedon.864 The layout of the house Amess built on the island further strengthens the argument that Samuel Amess utilised Churchill Island as a healthful retreat in line with late nineteenth century medical opinion. Unlike many mountain residences, the veranda at Churchill Island did not wrap around the whole of the building, but instead graced only the front and back of the house, where it served as the sole means of communication between the east and west sides of the house. Such a layout is suggestive that the house was used primarily during the summer season, deliberately designed to increase guests’ exposure to healthful seaside air in line with Dr Bird’s advice.

862 In The Englishman’s Holiday, Pimlott argued that the spa had ‘satisfied not only the craving for remedies for ills, often imaginary…but also the desire for novelty and change, for new ways of expending wealth and obtaining excitement…and a pleasant alternative to the life of the city when the palate for urban life was jaded.’ Pimlott, The Englishman’s Holiday, 29. 863 Inglis convincingly argued that colonial Victorians looked to the urban seascapes of Blackpool, Brighton, Margate, Ramsgate and Torquay as the model by which Victorian seaside resorts should be based, but that only St Kilda ever achieved the distinctly urban feel of British seaside resorts. Inglis, Good Health and Good Company, 12, 20, 26–7. 864 The original Governor’s cottage was described by James Anthony Froude as, ‘a long, low one storied building with a deep veranda round it, clustered with creepers’. Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground, 154, 165. From the John Oxley Collection, State Library of Queensland. See also http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/37889835. 200

Fig. 20 The front veranda. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

In making his leisured landscape on Churchill Island, Amess maintained some of the features created by the Pickersgills and Rogers, like the 1860s cottages, and added others, although it is difficult to know which features maintained by Amess were kept in their original locations, and which were copied and moved elsewhere. A good example is the shell paths originally made by the Rogers family that can be seen in Fig. 21. 201

Fig. 21 Amess family photograph in front of the main house and its gardens. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

Fig. 22 Amess standing in front of two fences. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

202

Given that the main house was constructed by Amess, it is unlikely that the paths separating the plantings in front of the main house were the same paths made by the Rogers; rather Amess maintained the idea of the shell paths on the island. A photograph that shows a fence constructed of felled logs in a rather primitive style also suggest that he chose to retain an earlier fence made by either the Pickersgills or Rogers, in addition to installing fences of posts and wire. The house gardens in Fig. 21, which are remarkably similar to a Toowoomba garden photographed in 1870, albeit with more tightly spaced plantings,865 was designed not only to denote the leisured nature of the site, but to facilitate it. These gardens not only provided space for relaxation or contemplation, they also provided a subject matter for painting and sketching, as suggested in Laurence’s sketchbook.866 The ordered garden beds, separated by shell paths, are comprised entirely of ornamental plants including hollyhocks, watsonia, yucca, hydrangeas, camellias and standard roses.867 The diverse collection of exotics in the house garden would also have proclaimed Amess’s excellent connections with the nursery world. According to Amess family history, the Riddells Creek nursery run by John Smith provided Amess with a number of fruit trees, which were used to extend the orchard begun by Rogers.868 Orchards were an integral feature of at least one grand Mount Macedon hill station—at Derriweit Heights, Charles Ryan created an extravagant botanical garden which included orchards of fruit trees as well as the obligatory fern gully and beds of azaleas and rhododendrons.869 Smaller properties like George Henry Cox’s house at Mount Wilson also featured fruit trees, and indeed these were the feature that received particular attention from Cox.870 The palms and the Norfolk pine, seen in Fig. 16, demonstrate an appreciation of Australian flora, as did the retention of the island’s native Moonah at the rear of the house.871 Amess, unlike many of his contemporaries building summer homes in the mountains of Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales or at Mount Macedon in Victoria, did not have to clear his block of land in order to create a European

865 Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground, 165. 866 This image shows a woman seated at an easel with paint brushes but does not clearly show her subject matter or surrounds. Laurence, Sketchbook, 1900, Churchill Island Collection care of Patricia Baird, in Baird, History and Her Story, 57. 867 Cutter, A Special Place, 1. 868 Cutter, A Special Place, 869 Inglis noted that at ‘St Vigeans’, another Mount Macedon hill station estate, rhododendrons were the showcase plant on display, and also featured prominently in the gardens of ‘Wairoa’. Fern mania was a well-known phenomenon in Australia. Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground, 169, 171–2, 159–162. 870 Ibid., 177. 871 These trees still stand today. Field Notes, Tuesday 20 March 2007. 203 settler colonial vision of a rural retreat.872 Clearing had already been completed by the Pickersgill and Rogers families, and as a result Amess, unlike his Mount Lofty contemporary Sir Thomas Elder, would not have had much of an opportunity to agonise over the destruction of native vegetation in the making of his leisured landscape.873 He obviously valued the stand of native moonah that remained, however: photographs from the DCNR collection suggest that for Amess, these trees served as a space for contemplation, and his gaze in Fig. 23 is directed towards them, rather than out to sea. Samuel Amess, like Richard Wynne at Mount Wilson, admired some of his retreat’s native vegetation, and preserved the small portion remaining for entirely aesthetic and contemplative reasons.874

Fig. 23 The Moonah woodland. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

872 Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground, 173–5. 873 Ibid., 176. 874 Ibid. 204

Social Distinction and Leisure on Churchill Island

In some of my discussions with members of the Churchill Island Community, some members asserted that class or notions of social distinction were really the preoccupations of town life, and not part of rural settler colonial culture.875 Analysis of the DCNR’s photographs, however, suggest that Inglis’s arguments about the nature of nineteenth-century leisure and health seeking by the middle and upper classes and their preoccupations with social distinction are a more accurate lens through which Samuel Amess and his family’s use of Churchill Island should be understood. Two photographs dating from the 1880s show men in their shirt sleeves and vests876 lounging in a relaxed poses in pastoral landscapes fringed by a windbreaks of native Tea Tree, Moonah, Sheoak, and the occasional larger Eucalyptus.

Fig. 24 Two men in sheep paddock. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

875 Amess family, Interviewed by Patricia Baird and Rebecca Sanders, Churchill Island 10 December 2012; Email correspondence with Laurie Thompson, 17, 18, 19, 20 March 2010. 876 Since shirts were considered items of underwear until the twentieth century, men always wore vests, waistcoats or jackets over their shirts unless they were in a situation where it was acceptable to be clothed only in underclothes, which outside of the bedroom usually meant all male spaces like shearing sheds where the conventions of ‘polite’ society did not matter, as opposed to gentlemen’s clubs, where polite conventions still mattered, even though ladies were not present. Victoria and Albert Museum, Undressed: A History of Western Undergarments, exhibition catalogue. 205

Fig. 25 Amess and two other men in eastern part of Churchill Island. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

These are not scenes of working men: they are scenes of conspicuous leisure, and are similar to those of visitors to Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales in front of Cooper’s Grand Hotel in 1887.877 The landscapes in which they are taken may feature the open spaces, shelter belts and even sheep that make them recognisable as paddocks, but they do not appear to be heavily stocked, and the absence of labour or labourers is notable. Most obvious of all is the relaxed posing of its subjects and the styling of their appearance: their apparel is made of good quality material (i.e. closely woven fabric) and their hats and facial hair are worn in a way that emphasises their individual personalities or style. The difference between these groups and that of a group of people in front of the 1860s cottages that also form part of the collection of photographs and were probably taken around the same time is impossible to miss.

877 Fig. 19, from the Mount Victoria Historical Society in Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground, 167. 206

Fig. 26 Servants’ or Manager’s residence circa 1880. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

Here the clothes are made of poor (rough or loosely woven) material, and the men have opened their waistcoats in a way that did not fit with polite behaviour: shirts were undergarments in the nineteenth century.878 Where there is nothing to interrupt the view of the figures in the paddocks, the grape vine covered fence serves to visually separate the group in Fig. 25 from the viewer. Those knowledgeable about how space was used and demarcated on Churchill Island would have also been able to tell that the cottage they stood on the veranda of was the manger’s residence, not that of the Amess family or its visitors.879 Comparison with other photographs available through the NLA’s Trove search shows similarly composed photographs of this period, all of servants, usually placed outside their place of work, or lodgings, and wearing their ‘work’ clothes.880 The visual language of these photographs is thus one of class, social distinction, and

878 Victoria and Albert Museum, Undressed: A History of Western Undergarments, exhibition catalogue. 879 Both Marjorie Laurence, and Irene Busch, wife of one of the island’s twentieth century mangers, noted that the cottage served as the manger’s residence. Marjorie Amess, ‘Churchill Island’, The Australasian, 9 March 1907, p.56; Cutter, A Special Place, 35; Baird, History and Her Story, 49. 880 Chuck, The Queen Studio, ‘Negative, Cardigan, Victoria, circa 1990’, Museum Victoria, available at http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/768945/negative-cardigan-victoria-circa-1890; Dr Thomas Beckett, Northcote, ‘Negative, Maysbury Residence, Northcote, 1892’, Museum Victoria, available at http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/774014/negative-maysbury-residence-northcote-victoria-1892; ‘Negative, Madam Strachan and the Three Maids, Creswick, Victoria, circa 1890’, Museum Victoria, available at http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/769620/negative-madam-strachan-her-three-maids-creswick- 207 difference, and one that very clearly emphasises the leisure that Amess and his family and friends enjoyed on Churchill Island. Such leisure is not synonymous with the present interpretation of Churchill Island as a ‘working farm’, although farming to some extent did form part of Amess’s use of Churchill Island.

Responding to Current interpretations: To What Extent a Farm?

I opened this chapter with the story of FOCIS’s concern that Lovell Chen’s Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island might ‘do away’ with its current interpretation as a heritage farm. During the second phase of the Churchill Island Project I consciously looked for information about farming on Churchill Island because I knew that PINP’s current interpretation of the site was well received by the Churchill Island Community as a result of my discussions with FOCIS members, oral interviews with Phillip Island local residents and people with personal connections to Churchill Island.881 My analysis of this information in Phase Three, however, led to some uncomfortable conclusions, namely that Churchill Island’s connection with farming in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was minimal, and certainly not its major valuation. In 1877, an entry in the Argus recorded that 23 pure Leicester sheep had been shipped from Churchill Island aboard the Swan, along with 34 bales of wool, 12 bales of skins, 2 cases of tallow, and 5 cases of fruit, evidence that Amess continued to farm Churchill Island and sell its produce.882 Photographs shown in Dyke and Spencer’s Churchill Island: An Historic Garden Conservation Study, which now appear to be missing from the DCNR’s collection, document a small but well-established orchard on Churchill Island, as do the existence of the island’s heritage listed Walnut, Mulberry and Olive trees located between Amess’s house and the 1860s cottages.883 Further support can be found in the diary entries from one of Samuel and Janet

victoria-circa-1890; ‘Negative, Echuca? Victoria, circa 1985’ Museum Victoria, available at http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/768149/negative-echuca-victoria-circa-1895, all accessed 3 March 2015. 881 Question time following Brady, ‘Presentation of Lovell Chen’s progress on drafting a Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island’, Field Notes, FOCIS meeting, Churchill Island, 14 February, 2015. 882 It is unclear from the report whether or not all the produce was from Churchill Island, or only the Leicesters ‘Shipping Intelligence, Imports’, Argus 31 January 1877, p. 4. 883 Considering the age of the trees shown in the photographs it is possible they had been planted by the Rogers and pre-dated Amess’s purchase of Churchill Island. Dyke and Spencer, Churchill Island: An Historic Garden Conservation Study; Cutter, A Special Place, 31. 208

Amess’s sons, John W.B. Amess, who records that he spent two days shearing sheep during his visit to Churchill Island in late November of 1887.884 Amess also kept highland cattle, shown in Fig. 27.885

Fig. 27 Amess’s black highland cattle. The colouring of the animal in the background suggests it may have been a more ordinary milk cow. Photograph courtesy Picture Collection of the DSE, formerly the DCNR.

While it is tempting to see these records, and that of an entry in the Argus as proof that Amess continued to farm the island in much the same manner as Rogers had, close examination of the details precludes this view. The types of animals Amess was keeping, pure Leicester sheep and highland cattle, were animals primarily of interest to breeders rather than farmers: Leicesters were usually crossed with other longwool sheep to increase wool production, and were only rarely kept as pure breeds for farming purposes.886 With regard to highland cattle, William McGreggor is the only other importer of note at this time, and Inglis has convincingly argued

884 The diary here appears to refer to events on Churchill Island, rather than on John W.B. Amess’s farm at Bolinda Park, with the exception of the mating of some cows, which are listed as being at Bolinda Park in Bolinda in earlier entries. John W.B. Amess was accompanied on his trip to Churchill Island by his wife and daughter. John W.B. Amess, Diaries 1887–1905, Entries for Friday 18 to Friday 25 November 1887. State Library of Victoria, La Trobe Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 12806. 885 Ibid. 886 D.P. Sponenburg, J. Henry, K Smith-Anderson and E. Shirley, ‘Leicester Longwool Sheep in the United States: Saving an International Rarity’ Animal Genetic Resources Information, 45 (2009): 94. 209 that McGreggor kept highland cattle because they allowed him to demonstrate his wealth, assuage his pride or love of his Scottish heritage, and allowed him to pursue his interest in acclimatising exotic species to the Australian landscape.887 Like Rogers before him, Amess was a member of the ASV, and Churchill Island offered a space where he could demonstrate his support for that society through the importation and breeding of exotic animals and plants and ‘improve’ a formerly Indigenous Australian landscape in a manner that was personally satisfying. This argument is supported by descriptions of Amess’s transformation of Churchill Island in Men of the Time, which argued that Amess imported highland cattle onto the island because he enjoyed the look of the ‘bonnie beasties’, phrasing that supports the idea that Amess and others in the Colony of Vitoria did not associate such efforts with farming.888 Indeed, the list of animals Amess imported onto Churchill Island recorded in Men of the Time emphasises the argument that during Amess’s tenure, Churchill Island was not a space or landscape associated with farming in the minds of Victorian settlers. Rather, it records that in addition to his importation of highland cattle, Amess also brought horses, quail, pheasants and rabbits onto Churchill Island.889 These animals are primarily associated with hunting, not farming. That Amess’s own family viewed Churchill Island throughout Churchill Island’s use for hunting is supported by a number of photographs that show Amess and his family or friends engaged in shooting on Churchill Island.

887 At ‘Ard Choille’ in Mt Macedon, fellow settler and Scotsman, William MacGregor, had a number of ornamental lakes made, referred to as lochs, which the Woodend Star and Advocate argued were used for a serious trout breeding scheme deigned to test the acclimatisation potential of various species. MacGreggor not only had his chimneys’ brickwork patterned in tartan checks, his garden filled with plants native to his home country and bred highland cattle but he also employed a Scot’s piper to complete his vision of the colonial highland laird at his country estate. ‘The Home in the Woods. Visit to “Ard Choille” and “Strathmore”, Fish Culture on an Elaborate Scale’ in Woodend Star and Advocate, 24 September 1898, Gisbourne and Mount Macedon Historical Society File in Inglis, Claiming the Higher Ground, 183, see also 169–171. 888 Humphries, Men of the Time in Australia, 3. 889 Ibid. 210

Fig. 28 Amess, two Spaniels and gun. Photograph courtesy of the CIA. Originally from the picture collection of the DCNR.

Fig. 29 Shooter and second man. Close examination of this photograph show that the man on the left is carrying a gun under his arm, but not the man on the right. Photograph courtesy of the DSE Picture Collection, formerly the DCNR.

211

Churchill Island in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Maintaining Settler Colonial Space through a Paradigm of Leisure and Inheritance

At the beginning of this chapter I noted Wolfe’s arguments, that in settler colonies ‘colonisers come to stay’,890 a statement Veracini usefully expanded upon when he argued that settlers are not only ‘founders of political orders’, rather more potently, they ‘carry [and impose] their sovereignty and lifestyles with them.’891 The Amess family’s use and shaping of Churchill Island as a settler colonial space and leisured landscape demonstrated their adherence to culturally imported ideas about gentility and leisure as well as demonstrate their success as ‘settlers’. In many respects Churchill Island served as a potent symbol of the rewards the industrious settler could win for him or herself, both in the Amess family’s ability to escape the heat and noisome air of Melbourne in the summer and their freedom to shape Churchill Island so that it conformed to their ideal of a settled landscape. This chapter has demonstrated how settlers in the Colony of Victoria imported, adapted and performed ideas of social distinction, leisure and health though the sale, valuation, landscaping and use of spaces like Churchill Island. Such practises were preserved through inheritance, another British import, which guaranteed that Samuel Amess the Alderman was able to ensure his children enjoyed the exclusive right to utilise Churchill Island for themselves, and their friends and families. Churchill Island’s master for much of the latter nineteenth century, former Melbourne Mayor and Alderman Samuel Amess, passed away in 1898, leaving the island to one of his sons, also Samuel Amess.892 That Samuel Amess in turn passed the island onto his son.893 While this third Samuel Amess did not manage to retain the title, the pattern of private landholding on Churchill Island was set, at least until its purchase by the VCT.894

For Churchill Island, the coming of settlement in the longer term did not result in serious farming. Although farming on a small scale did occur, and under the Jeffery brothers who managed the site for Gerald Neville Buckley from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, with great

890 Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology, 2. 891 Veracini, Settler Colonialism, 53, 98. 892 Although the land transfer had occurred on paper in 1879. Evidence presented in this chapter, however, suggests that Alderman Amess continued to run the island for himself until his death. Baird, History and Her Story, 47. 893 Cutter, A Special Place, 33. 894 Ibid., 41, 55. 212 science,895 the site was too small to attract much attention in this manner. Instead, the island became valued for other reasons, largely connected with leisure since Churchill Island was frequently a second, if not third home for its owners.896 This did, however, mean that the site wasn’t valued, only that its value was a different kind to that which has been ascribed to it since its interpretation as a ‘heritage farm.’ As the photographs shown in this chapter illustrate, ‘peaceful’ settlers like Samuel Amess not only passively enjoyed the fruits of earlier violent actions and dispossession, they actively maintained the conditions created by them.

The landscaping that occurred during the Amess era was of such an extensive nature that much of it remains today: the villa, its gardens with its Norfolk Pine and camellias, the shell paths have been maintained, even the remains of a jetty on the northern end of the island are still visible. The extent to which this late nineteenth-century landscape has been maintained, and in some instances re-created, is a testament of the permanency that settlers desired to achieve in their use and making of settler colonial space. Like Grant, the Pickersgills and Rogers before them, the Amess family fixed their claims to Churchill Island into the very soil by planting gardens and erecting buildings. In doing so they sought to make a landscape that would reward them with fruits that settling had brought them; fine views, good shooting, opportunities to enjoy the gardens and healthful, seaside air.

895 Interview with Harry Cleeland, Phillip Island, 24 July 2007. 896 Cutter, A Special Place, 37–8, 54. 213

Conclusion: The Churchill Island Project, a Public History Success Story

The Churchill Island Project, commissioned by PINP and co-sponsored by PINP and SHAPS, proved to be a more complex, more risky and in the end, more rewarding project than either partner originally envisaged. The very different views of each research partner may have resulted in competing expectations as to what the project involved and the way in which the agreed outcome, this thesis, was to be achieved, but through continued dialogue, and perhaps a stubborn refusal to leave the table, in this thesis I have achieved a new understanding of Churchill Island’s history. Better, I have ensured at least some public acceptance of its findings. When placed within the context of prior unsuccessful efforts to alter understandings of Churchill Island’s past, an initial lack of trust between project stakeholders, and my own scholarly baggage as a result of the History Wars that raged during my undergraduate, the Churchill Island Project demonstrates that a reflexive model of making history that seriously engages in with shared inquiry and shared authority, as well as more traditional scholarly concerns, is not only achievable, it is highly desirable.

Through a process of shared inquiry, shared authority and the application of the historian’s tool kit, I determined that this thesis should not only respond to public stakeholders’ greater interest in the site’s colonial past, it should engage in a dialogue with them about what that past means, and Churchill Island’s more recent past as a heritage site. In the final stages of this project I took this course of action to its logical conclusion. I offered my work for critique and comment by the project’s public stakeholders. In Phase Four I used the hard won knowledge I had gained about how shared inquiry and shared authority worked to build trust between this project’s stakeholders and encourage open dialogue about Churchill Island’s past, and what it means. I did so firstly through one-on-one conversations, then in house public presentations with FOCIS, before moving onto to bigger risks and bigger rewards. I sent copies of my unfinished, appallingly edited drafts to my research partner in the same manner that I sent them to my supervisor because PINP wanted to give the consultants they had hired the most up to date information available and I wanted that opportunity. Doing so has changed the way these consultants approached Churchill Island and its history. The result is mind boggling, because there is now a strong change that the findings of this thesis will be used to help Churchill Island’s 130,000 plus annual visitors 214 rewrite their conceptions of this island and by extension, Victoria’s colonial and settler colonial past.

In The History Wars, academics noted that conservative, traditional element so f Australian society argued that teaching children ‘that we’re part of a sort of racist and bigoted history’ should be replaced with ‘an objective record of achievement’.896 While these arguments might have related to the teaching of history inside schools, debates surrounding the presentation of Australian history at the Australian National Museum, not to mention the presentation of history more generally in museums in New Zealand and the United States, alerted public historians that such concerns are not confined to the classroom.897 In the United States, public historians like Weible responded to these challenges by declaring that public historians have a responsibility to ‘mak[e] history matter, by making dangerous to simple and self-serving renditions of the past’.898 This history of Churchill Island has taken up Weible’s challenge to make a thesis that refutes many of Churchill Island’s traditional and official interpretations, but which has nonetheless been accepted and used by a number of its public stakeholders though my increasing confidence in sharing inquiry and authority. In the months before handing in this thesis I also approached Thompson with an updated version of my draft of Chapter Five, and Chapter One, since I had no intention of holding Thompson up as some kind of straw man, and I was concerned that my use of our correspondence in these chapters could have resulted in this situation if poorly executed. Thompson’s response to this effort is worth quoting, since it differs substantially from our earlier exchanges.

I have read your thesis twice and congratulate you on your amount of research and it’s depth of investigation.899

It should also be noted that Thompson went on to list the points he hoped my chapter would emphasise, many of which related not only to a desire to get the details right, but that such details were important in their own right.900 Grayden’s comments on a full draft of this thesis were equally thought provoking, and I have attempted to respond to both public stakeholders’ critiques of my work as much as possible within the text of this thesis, as well as to comments on my findings by groups like FOCIS. Receiving feedback from both Thompson and Grayden was thrilling in the closing stages of this project, and demonstrated not only

896 Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 137; Clendinnen, ‘The History Question, 2. 897 Macintyre and Clark, The History Wars, 161–8. 898 Weible quoted in Bergstrom, ‘In Dogged Pursuit of Public History’: 5. 899 Email correspondence with Laurie Thompson, 17, 18, 19, 20 March 2010, 18 February and 13 March 2015. 900 Ibid. 215 how much I had learned about how to do public history, but also how a number of this thesis’s public stakeholders had learned to trust and take advantage of my expertise in the best way possible.

One of the most obvious things that we (this project’s public and perhaps its academic stakeholders) have learned during the Churchill Island Project is that the best public history does not cease once the agreed outcome has been achieved. For public history to be truly successful, there needs to be some kind of legacy, something that lingers on after the book is read, the exhibition is closed or the thesis submitted. This is a lesson I learned outside of the Churchill Island Project when I took up an offer to run a local history class in a community centre and slowly stumbled into the world of community development. It is a lesson, however, that I have been careful to apply to the Churchill Island Project as I near the final stages of Phase Four. After submitting this thesis for examination, my next task is to organise a presentation for PINP’s frontline staff, to give them an advance copy, as it were, of this thesis’s findings. While more cautious academics might (and occasionally have) cautioned me against releasing my findings too soon, I have learned that public history is different to academic history: releasing your findings and engaging in dialogue is how you make sure that people will listen to you. In a conversation, there is always the option of changing your mind if a better idea occurs.

At the Leading Edge: Churchill Island and the Practice of Public History

One of the major contributions of this thesis to scholarly discussion is its careful dissection and analysis of the practice of public history. One of the most important questions to emerge after the cancellation of The Last Act was how historians could, or should, work with the public to create meaningful history on the one hand and acceptable history on the other.901 This thesis, which takes as its starting point concerns voiced in The Public Historian, usefully contributes to these discussions not by its examination of whether or not scholars should work with the public, but rather how this is to be achieved. The Churchill Island Project sought to make a thesis that would be useful and acceptable to both its public and academic

901 In some instances this discussion has revolved around the role of public institutions like museums, libraries or galleries play as sites of interpretative authority, in others it has concentrated on more direct relationships between scholars and their publics, and in still others, particularly within the pages of the Public History Review, on more general discussions relating to the relationship the public has with history more generally. Steven C. Dubin, Displays of Power: Controversy in the American Museum from the Enola Gay to Sensation (New York and London: New York University Press, 1999), 11. 216 stakeholders, and in this respect the project may be considered a success. This being the case, it is important to carefully delineate how it worked, because detailed analysis of successful projects has been rare, and this has made it more difficult for practitioners to do a good job of making public history.902 My experience during the Churchill Island Project and my reading of others’ experiences suggests that the oft-repeated comment that public historians learn through doing is a reflection of the relative infancy of the field, not the outlook of its best practitioners. My experience of learning through doing was hard, and perhaps like many practitioners, I am hopeful of finding a better way. With the publication of special issues like Public History as Reflective Practice and Barber’s article ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’ there is cause to be optimistic.

One of the major findings of this thesis regarding the practice of public history is the vital importance of relationships and how they function in public history work. In her analysis of the practice of CBPR in archaeology, Atalay argued that relationships are the foundation for successful projects; ‘the better relationships are, the more effective and productive the project, and the more detailed the results’.903 During the course of the Churchill Island Project I have learned something of how relationships function to provide the capacity for sharing authority. This learning has enabled me to respond more fully to the challenges and opportunities that sharing inquiry and authority presents, to recognise those instances where this might have been better executed, and how to alter my approach in the future. At the heart of my relationships with the project’s stakeholders was the issue of trust. Lewis’s analysis of the Neighbourhoods project suggests that when levels of trust are high, stakeholders or partners will be more willing to share authority, and that the obverse of this is equally true.904 My experience in the Churchill Island Project, elaborated in ‘A Four-Phase Project’ in Chapter One, supports the idea that trust is something that exists between stakeholders or partners, and that it functions as the currency through which relationships are

902 Steven Dubin notes that Harlem on My Mind curator Allon Schoener felt in the aftermath of what was possibly the most controversial exhibition to have been staged in America that ‘We [had] all bumbled it. The biggest regret I have in retrospect is that it’s hard to imagine that one could have been so naive about some of the things that happened, because they seem so obvious now. I mean they seem so improper or wrong or not astute.’ Ibid., 53. 903 Atalay, Community-Based Archaeology, 128. 904 Lewis noted that Rogers Park residents involved in the project did not have the same levels of trust in the Chicago Historical Society, and that as a result, they were ‘concerned with monitoring what story would be told and wanted to review all of the text’ unlike Douglas/Grand Boulevard residents, who Lewis argues had a greater level of trust in the project and while willing to review work, expected Chicago historical Society ‘staff to use their skills and expertise in constructing the narrative.’ Lewis, ‘The Neighbourhoods Project’ in The Changing Face of Public History, 109. 217 created and maintained. As I demonstrated, this trust was temporal in nature, and levels of trust will fluctuate over time if not carefully maintained. While Barber may not have highlighted that she had built her relationship with the Chinook peoples ‘over more than a decade’ in her work, my experiences in the Churchill Island Project suggests that the long- term nature of Barber’s relationship with members of the Chinook Nation, and its Cultural Committee in particular, created the high level of trust necessary to share authority successfully.905 This is because their relationships had had time to strengthen and mature. My analysis of Churchill Island’s history is and can be critical precisely because levels of trust were high enough for stakeholders to be accepting of its findings. When I sent the first full draft of the thesis to PINP, they requested no changes before handing it on to consultants Lovell Chen. Considering the experience of other public history practitioners,906 and my early experiences during the first phases of the project, this is worth remarking upon. Related to this recognition of the importance of relationships in public history projects as a result of my experiences during the Churchill Island Project is the mechanics of how this should be achieved. As I noted in Chapter One, Barber has argued that historians have used the term shared authority in ‘sometimes fluid and imprecise ways’, and while, as Barber notes, this has opened up important conversations about sharing authority,907 these conversations have not yet been transformed into detailed dialogues or better still, practical guides for application. ‘Trial and error and careful listening’,908 or learning through doing and reflexive practice, have been good starting points for public history practitioners looking to incorporate shared inquiry and shared authority into their work, but as both academic and public stakeholders in this project have noted, learning by doing has proved a lengthy process. This is a problem, and one we would do well to address: not only does it detract from the challenges we would prefer to spend our time meeting, it also makes public history less attractive to universities in an environment of squeezing staff time and streamlining of student learning; to businesses who need to report on their achievements and close off on projects; and to the broader community, who tire of waiting for the product they have been

905 Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’, 32. 906 Stephan Dubin discussed his experience of public history making and subsequent firing from Art, Design and Barbie: The Making of a Cultural Icon, in his book, Displays of Power. ‘After nearly a year of challenging work with a group of talented and energetic people, I was summarily dismissed at the eleventh hour by the order of Mattel, which, I belatedly discovered, was footing the bill. Furthermore, every word I had written for the catalogue was rejected because it was deemed “unflattering” to Mattel’s premier product.’ Dubin, Displays of Power, 53, 15. 907 Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’, 23. See also Michael Frisch, ‘Commentary: Sharing Authority: Oral History and the Collaborative Process,’ The Oral History Review 30, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2003): 113. 908 Barber, ‘Shared Authority in the Context of Tribal Sovereignty’, 32. 218 promised. The solution is to acquire a better understanding of how shared authority and shared inquiry work, and when and where they should be used.

Reflecting-on-action, it is clear that I did not realise how differently shared inquiry and shared authority functioned during the first three phases of the Churchill Island Project. My pursuit of a model of shared inquiry meant that public stakeholders’ greatest influence was seen in which subjects were addressed by the thesis, and what kind of details were highlighted as noteworthy, while academic stakeholders’ greatest influence manifested the manner in which these subjects and details were analysed. In this project, shared inquiry provided an ideal way to set up the broad research agenda, and also provided useful avenues for possible data collection. It was less helpful, however, in determining a program of detailed research or its analysis, largely because the project’s public stakeholders were unfamiliar with the differences between the critical, academic history they had commissioned, and the publicly oriented history they were more familiar with. This suggests that once the public historian moves from the general to the particular, professional expertise becomes highly desirable: the mistake I made was in not recognising when I should have insisted on the expertise of my supervisors in the development of my research process and the analysis of the data I had collected. The flip side of this is that shared authority was extremely useful in providing a means of navigating possible impasses with regards to public stakeholders’ acceptance of my findings, and I stand by my lengthy and time-consuming efforts on this front in Phase Four. For this process to be genuinely useful, however, my experience suggests that the release of findings should be begun early, as this provides stakeholders with genuine opportunities to criticise and thus improve the project outcomes. The research process, however, unless you have an expert in your field, is best conducted by the expert, who can draw on stakeholder input, but should not ‘genuflect’ to stakeholders on this front until they have findings to report and criticism to receive.

A Settlement Story, But Not as You’ve Known it: Findings for Churchill Island’s Public Stakeholders

In the final stages of the Churchill Island Project, Lovell Chen were commissioned by PINP to complete a Conservation Management Plan for the site, which would set up a ten-year 219 framework for the site’s heritage management.909 I later heard from Christine Grayden that Lovell Chen was having some difficulty defining the site’s heritage significance.910 In some ways this was unsurprising, since my own experience of writing Churchill Island’s history had been a fairly fractured process until the later part of Phase Four, when I began to see how wonderfully the site demonstrated the richness and complexity of the settlement project. The site and its evident peculiarities were not, as microstoria helped me to understand, something that needed to be glossed over in order to maintain a traditional understanding of this space, rather, they were a gift: their highly visible nature forced the historian to grapple with them, and in doing so, brought attention to the complexity of the colonial and settler colonial processes in ways that other, more easily defined sites might have had more difficulty achieving.

As I noted in Chapter One, PINP’s commissioning of a PhD thesis meant that the product they commissioned needed to seriously engage in academic conversations. In the second chapter of the thesis, I revealed how the Churchill Island Project’s framework of reflective practice, shared inquiry and shared authority was enriched through the use of critical theory and methodologies, namely microstoria, settler colonialism and ideas of space, place, and landscape. Using these tools helped me to alter my perception of Churchill Island’s history from something composed of a set of chronological contributions to a deep understanding of the systems that individuals and groups making Churchill Island were affected by, worked within or used to their advantage. The VCT, for example, made superb use of its positioning in a relatively unregulated heritage environment to purchase a place of historical interest and magnificent bird life that now provides an increasingly urbanised society with a valuable heritage landscape where, to paraphrase Sally O’Neil, that landscape can help them envisage ‘what life used to be like’. John Rogers and the Pickersgill family, frustrated by the lack of land available to ‘genuine’ settlers in the aftermath of the gold rushes, utilised an established system of poorly policed pastoral leasing to their advantage, and settled Churchill Island as squatters. Samuel Amess and his successors, influenced by the fashion for seaside retreats and mountain retreats, remade Churchill Island into a landscape devoted to and symbolic of the leisure the ‘hard working’ settler could obtain in a land sold out from under the feet of its original inhabitants. While the planting of a garden on Churchill Island in 1801 did not lead directly to these diverse projects, the desire that garden

909 Meeting regarding Conservation Management Plan with PINP and Lovell Chen, Penguin Parade, Field Notes, 2 December, 2014. 910 Email communication re completion seminar with Christine Grayden, 7–10 February 2015. 220 symbolised, however briefly, was real enough, and the broader history of exploration into which it fits did result in the eventual settlement of the state. It was this symbolic potential that writers in the 1930s and 1940s turned to: the historic first, as Lowenthal has argued, offered a means of explaining Victoria’s beginnings. This was important then because a newly federated society was convinced that the disappearance of Australia’s first peoples was inevitable, and being confronted by this presumed imminent loss, began to treasure a relationship with the Australian landscape in emulation of Australia’s Indigenous peoples. Under the VCT’s management this story transformed into a story of environmental loss, and perhaps more recently under PINP management, into a loss of a rural settler lifestyle, romanticised through a nostalgia that eulogised the ideas of simplicity and reward for effort that the thesis suggests obscures a far more complex picture. When I had explained the major findings of my thesis to Lovell Chen, PINP and FOCIS at a meeting discussing the shaping of Churchill Island’s new Conservation Management Plan, Sally O’Neil was particularly struck by my explanation that both the Pickersgill and Rogers families had made good use of the colonial administration’s difficulty in enforcing their laws. ‘And here we were’ O’Neil remarked, ‘thinking that Rogers was the good guy’. My history of Churchill Island demonstrates that simple value judgments about people’s capacity for hard work, or their ability to persevere through difficult times misses much that is important about our past, and that it is useful to employ scholarly techniques when we re-examine the past because they provide a depth of field that can otherwise be missed.

So, what, this project’s public stakeholders might like to know, is the significance of Churchill Island? As a cultural heritage landscape, current discourse suggests that the answer to this is whatever we need it to be, with the proviso that this need be somehow related to the concept of authenticity. Such a glib reply, however, is understandably less than satisfactory to this project’s public stakeholders, whose desire for ‘facts’ has been remarked on throughout this thesis. Furthermore, as I noted in Chapter Six, Churchill Island’s public stakeholders, including PINP, were no doubt hoping that I might offer something to replace the straightforward Statement of Significance that this thesis has disproved. An expert, however, should be aware of the limits of their remit: for all that I am conversant with heritage literature and thought, I am not a heritage consultant, and the Churchill Island Project was not commissioned with the production of a heritage classification in mind. I therefore remain reluctant to offer an opinion on Churchill Island’s heritage significance within this work. That said, I would suggest that careful reading of this thesis, and the research I have conducted for 221 it, does suggest future avenues of research that may assist in the production of future Statements of Significance. One of these might include an investigation of why planting gardens was such a popular form of claiming possession around the turn of the nineteenth century. Another might look further into the habit of squatters in the Western Port (and possibly other areas) to see how common it was for squatters to behave as though they were settlers. Yet another might look into more general patterns of leisured landscape making as a part of a suite of ways in which settler spaces were not only made, but maintained and built upon, and why this was the case.

With respect to the historical significance of the island, answering this question is a more complex undertaking. To repeat an argument that has become fashionable of late, this thesis represents only one history of Churchill Island: others have preceded it, and still others will succeed it. This is not an effort to side step an important question, but rather a reminder that history is an art composed of the interpretation of factual data. My interpretation of Churchill Island suggests that its rich history offers a superb opportunity to better understand the complexity inherent in the settlement project. Its slightly out of kilter place in narratives of exploration, squatting and the making of leisured landscapes, offers a privileged vantage point near the fault lines of history; the cracks and upwellings where we can better observe the awesome forces of large scale processes like settler colonialism at work on a subject that is small enough to allow us to grasp the details. This does not make Churchill Island unique from an Australian perspective, but it does differentiate this space from the locale in which it is situated. Churchill Island’s history, my research suggests, is nothing like the history of neighbouring Phillip Island or the southern Gippsland region in general. Stranded somewhere between the normative and the special, Churchill Island’s historical significance is, like its island landscape, a place between, not cut off and adrift from the mainland of historical experience, but rather a site of dialogue, where if we listen carefully, we can understand just how complex the settler colonial project really was.

Addressing the Concerns of the Academy: The Contribution of this Thesis to Academic Discourse

In addition to its clear contribution to the field of Public History, this thesis has contributed to scholarly discussions in a number of other smaller, but useful ways. Most obviously, it responds to Banivanua Mar and Edmond’s concern that historians should address the micro- 222 conditions that underpin Australia’s nominally postcolonial society through microstoria. The contribution of this thesis to settler colonial discussion and history in particular lies in its use of Churchill Island as a case study, one which is small enough in scope to encourage a detailed examination of the processes through which settler colonial space was made and maintained, and in the case of the 1801 garden, what happened when this did not occur. In doing so it argues that settlement, and with it settler colonialism, was not a monolithic process, but something far more contingent than has generally been acknowledged. Its tracing of Churchill Island’s generative processes demonstrates the complex interplay that existed between spatial practice, representations of space and representational spaces in the making of a recognisable settler colonial landscape. It thus brings together an emerging body of scholarly work on settler colonialism and links it with broader colonial studies like those of Carter, Byrnes and Ryan to demonstrate how physical transformations complemented and reinforced conceptual transformations communicated through language and imagery. This thesis’s use of Churchill Island’s history as a heritage site to locate its historical landscapes as a means of consulting a broader public, rather than utilising a social science approach, also suggests a way in which historians can make unique contributions within the heritage field. Perhaps most importantly for scholars within the ‘Ivory Tower’, it has also demonstrated how such scholarly concerns can be translated and shared with a broader public through its utilisation of reflexive public history practice, shared inquiry and shared authority.

The Future of the Churchill Island Project

This thesis has argued that while Churchill Island is not important because it was the first site in Victoria to be cultivated by Europeans, the history of the site offers an in-depth understanding of the reasons why, and ways in which, settlement and settler colonialism in particular work. I have further argued that Churchill Island, and an analysis of its unconventional place within a narrative of settlement, illuminates aspects of settlement that have not been well understood by this thesis’s public stakeholders, namely that settler colonialism was a process that needed to be maintained in order to be successful. It provides its commissioner, PINP, together with other stakeholders, both academic and public, with a history of Churchill Island’s exploration and settlement and its later transformation into a heritage site, and a detailed discussion of how that history was made. In doing so, it marries the, at times, conflicting desires of the projects’ various stakeholders into a unified product 223 that successfully demonstrates the utility of public history approach. Its attempt to delineate how this approach worked in practice will hopefully provide a basis for further work and criticism on this front. If there is anything that I have taken away from the Churchill Island Project it is the utility and effectiveness of collaborative practice in making large works, and I am only too conscious that my own elucidation of my attempts to find a method of ‘doing’ public history should be part of a broader discussion. This thesis is not a complete conceptualization of public history and how it works in practice, but rather a passionate argument for future work on this front. In particular I look forward to a synthesized enunciation of public history practice that does not separate ‘traditional scholarly apparatus’ from the application of shared inquiry, shared authority and reflective practice.911 Such a work would necessarily be difficult to create, but as I stressed in Chapter One, difficult is not the same as impossible, and it is a work that I believe would be well worth the effort.

While the future application of this thesis within scholarly discussion has yet to be written, it has already been taken up by a range of public stakeholders. FOCIS has been using the research completed for this thesis for some time now, not only as a means of communicating the history of Churchill Island to its members at meetings and through newsletter publications, but also in its efforts to obtain a dedicated museum for Churchill Island. The findings of this thesis were used to create a timeline of Churchill Island’s history, and a list of suggested themes. Churchill Island’s Curator Christine Grayden has also utilised the findings of this thesis in her efforts to update Churchill Island’s information panels. Last, though certainly not least, it has helped inform consultant’s Lovell Chen in their efforts to complete a new Conservation Management Plan for Churchill Island. Having a thorough and rigorous history on hand, as PINP and FOCIS in particular desired, has thus assisted PINP and other public stakeholders in a variety of ways in their efforts to manage and care for Churchill Island. While it is highly unlikely that the full complexity of an academic elucidation of Churchill Island’s settlement and its place within a broader narrative of settler colonial history will ever be communicated and taken up by managements and visitors, it now seems likely that it will help deepen their appreciation of our past and what it means. This is important, because it demonstrates the utility and importance of the expert so derided in the History Wars, provided they have the skills and the willingness to work with the public so desirous of accessing their expertise.

911 This point was raised by an examiner. Earlier drafts of the thesis had in fact attempted to present this work within a single chapter, but the difficulty of explaining the intricacies of the Churchill Island Project, and my own separation of these two aspects of public history until Phase Four of the project placed this task beyond me. 224

Bibliography

In addition to the works referenced below I also made my own archive comprised of notebooks, journals, correspondence, conference papers, papers for public presentations and drafts of this thesis to document the progress of the Churchill Island Project, which remain in my personal collection. Recorded copies of all interviews undertaken for the Churchill Island History Project will be added to the Churchill Island Archives upon final acceptance of this thesis. I have chosen to include both electronic and map collection references for maps so that they might be more easily accessed by this thesis’s public stakeholders.

Primary Sources

Manuscripts, unpublished files and unpublished reports

Churchill Island Archives

VCT, File 332-2-2 Churchill Island—Purchase Of

VCT, File 332-2-6 C.I.R.G.—Minutes and Agenda

VCT File Churchill Island—Master Plan No. 332-2-9

VCT, Cannon File

VNPS files—Maintenance and Management

PINP Homestead Restoration—Paperhangings File

Lewis, Miles. Homestead, Churchill Island, Draft unpublished report commissioned by Ray Leivers, PINP 1999, stamped by Heritage Victoria as an endorsed document, Permit 500, File 602898. PINP, Homestead Restoration—General Files

Martin, Roger Churchill Island Master Plan: An Environmental Approach to the Assessment of Land Use Alternatives. A Report to the Victoria Conservation Trust Prepared by Roger Martin, Ann McGregor, Steven Mathews Centre for Environmental Studies University of Melbourne May, 1980. Melbourne: Centre for Environmental Studies University of Melbourne, 1980. 225

Maunders, David. The Churchill Island Cannon: History and Mystery, 3. CIA, FOCIS File

O’Neil, Sally. Churchill Island Development Plan July 2001, completed 1999 (Phillip Island, Phillip Island Nature Park, 2001).1–5. PINP.

Opie, A.M., P.K. Gullen, S.C. van Berkel & H. van Rees. Sites of Botanical Significance in the Western Port Region Report, prepared for National Herbarium, Victoria, 1984. Unsorted files.

PINP. Biosis Research in association with R. Crocker and Associates, Phillip Island Nature Park Draft Management Plan October 1988. Cowes, Phillip Island: Phillip Island Nature Park Board of Management.

PINP, Churchill Island Heritage Farm Brochure, 2008.

Phillip Island and District Historical Society

Georgiana McHaffie, Diaries. Transcript held by Phillip Island and District Historical Society

Private Papers and Records,

Patricia Baird, private collection.

Carroll Schulz, private collection.

Public Records Office of Victoria

Protector of Aborigines, Reports and Returns. PROV VPRS11 Item 300.

Rate Books, Shire of Mornington, Phillip Island 1872, 1873, 1874. PROV, VPRS 11215, P0001, Unit 1.

Sheet 714, Run No. 1136 Sandstone Island, Pastoral Run Papers (microfiche), PROV.

Correspondence of the Acclimatisation Society 1862–. PROV VPRS 2225/P/0000, Unit 1

National Library of Australia

Murray, John.The Log of the Lady Nelson on a Voyage of Discovery to Bass Strait. Acting Lieutenant John Murray 1801–1802.Typescript Copy of Log of the Lady Nelson, Typescript by Andrew C.F. David from original at Hydrographic Department, Ministry of Defence, 226

Taunton, Somerset, Miscellaneous Papers Vol. 69-Ba1.Australian Manuscripts Collection MS 8178.

Log of the HMS/ Sloop Fly, under the command of Wetherall 1825 AJCP PRO Reel 5748, microfilm.

State Library of Victoria

Amess, John W.B. Diaries, 1877–1905, La Trobe Australian Manuscripts Collection, MS 12806.

Department of Sustainability and the Environment

Taylor, Michael and Mary Sheehan, Conservation Analysis: Churchill Island Homestead, Churchill Island, Victoria. Camberwell: Michael Taylor, Architect and Conservation Consultant, Prepared for Historic Places, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, May 1997.

Department of Primary Industries Library

Dyke, J. and R. Spencer, Churchill Island: An Historic Garden Conservation Study, Melbourne, Royal Botanic Gardens, Department Crown Lands and Survey, 1982.

Newspapers and Periodicals

Argus

Age

Brisbane Courier

Daily News

Frankston and Somerville Standard

Horsham Times

Mercury

Portland Guardian

Recorder 227

Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate

Woodend Star and Advocate

Maps

Map Collection, National Library of Australia

Arrowsmith, A. Charts of Port Dalrymple, Tasmania, Furneaux Islands, Western Port, Victoria and Twofold Bay, New South Wales, 20 February 1801. MAP RM676.

Barrallier, Francis. Chart of Western Port and Coast to Wilson’s Promontory forming Part of the North Side of Bass Strait. Surveyed by order of Governor King by Ensign Barrallier In HM Armed Surveying Vessel Lady Nelson Lieut. James Grant, Commander in March, April and May 1801. MAP RM 1862. Available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm1862.

Faure, Xavier. Esquisse du Port Western par Mr. Faure, ingenieur-geographe, d'apres ses operations et celles de Mr. Milius, Offer de Marine (Avril 1802). MAP RaA 2. Part 14 Available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-raa2-s14

Ferguson, Charles.Eastern Entrance to Western Port and the Anchorages off Cape Wollamai Surveyed by Charles Ferguson, Esqre.Chief Harbour Master of Victoria, 1861. Melbourne: Department of Crown Lands and Survey, 1862. MAP RM 2086. Available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm2086.

Flinders, Mathew.Chart of Terra Australis, Sheet V South Coast (London: Capt. Hurd, R.N. Hydrographer to the Admiralty, 1814). MAP T 594. Available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-t594-e

———. Carte du Detroit de Basse entre la Nouvelle Galles Meridionale et la Terre de Diemen levee par M. Flinders Lieutenant du vaisseau Anglais la Reliance par ordre de M. le Gouverneur Hunter en 1798 et 1799, Depot Generale de la Marine, date unknown. MAP T 1493. Available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-t1493-e

Ham, Thomas. Ham’s Squatting Map of Victoria (Port Phillip District, New South Wales): Carefully Corrected to this Date from the Colonial Government Surveys, Crown Lands, Commissioners, Explorers Maps, Private Surveys & c. Melbourne, Thomas Ham, 1851. MAP F895, Part 1. Available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-f895-s1-e. 228

———. Key to Ham’s Map of the Squatting District of Victoria. Melbourne: Thomas Ham, 1851. Available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-f895-s5-v and http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-f895-s6-v

Stokes, Commr J.L. Australia, Bass Strait, Port Western surveyed by Commr. J.L. Stokes, R.N., 1843. London : Published according to Act of Parliament at the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty ; Sold by R.B. Bate, agent for the Admiralty charts 21 Poultry & Royal Exchange East, April 12th 1845. MAP British Admiralty Special Map Col./57. Available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.map-vn3791311-v

Victoria, Dept. of Crown Lands and Survey, Parish of Kerrie (1880–1890). MAP RM 2741/102. Available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm2741-102, accessed 15 May 2013.

Victoria. Dept. of Crown Lands and Survey, Parish of Havelock, (1880–1890), MAP RM 2741/97. Available online at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm2741-97.

Victoria. Dept. of Crown Lands and Survey, Kerrie, County of Bourke, (1894). MAP RM 2741/101. Available at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.map-rm2741-101.

Wetherall, Chart of Western Port in Bass’s Straits by Captn. Wetherall, H.M.S. Fly 1827, London, date of publication unknown. MAP RM 681A.Available at http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-rm681a.

Public Records Office of Victoria

William Thomas’s map of the Western Port Protectorate District (Port Phillip and Western Port Bays), 1841.PROV, VPRS 6760/P0, unit 1 accessed at Tracking the Native Police (online exhibition) available at http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/nativepolice/maps/thomas_map_content.html.

Images

Baird, Patricia, Churchill Island Collection: Minnie Laurence Sketch Book

Churchill Island Archives Picture Collection: Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Photographs.

Churchill Island Archives Picture Collection: Photograph Albums, unsorted. 229

Department of Sustainability and the Environment Picture Collection: Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Historic Places Section, Resource Collection, Series 007 [photographs].

Schulz, Carroll and Amy, private collection: Private Photograph Albums.

Schulz, Carroll and Amy, private collection: Copies of Robert Ingpen Drawings

Ephemera, Moveable Cultural Heritage

Churchill Island Collection (Amess Bible and Chest, John Rogers)

Oral Interviews

Amess Family, Interviewed by Patricia Baird, and Rebecca Sanders, Churchill Island 10 December 2012, Churchill Island Oral History Project.

Cleeland, Harry. Interviewed by Rebecca Sanders, Phillip Island 24 July 2007, Churchill Island Oral History Project.

Garrat, Eve, Raye Peacock and John Peacock, by Rebecca Sanders, 20 September 2007, Churchill Island Oral History Project.

Hamilton, Heather. Interviewed by Rebecca Sanders, by Rebecca Sanders, Phillip Island 10 September 2007, Churchill Island Oral History Project.

Jeffery, Pat and Gerald. Interviewed by Rebecca Sanders, Phillip Island 1 August 2007, Churchill Island Oral History Project.

McFee, Cherry. Interviewed by Rebecca Sanders, Phillip Island 6 August 2007, Churchill Island Oral History Project.

Schulz, Carroll and Amy. Interviewed by Rebecca Sanders, Coronet Bay 10 December 2007, Churchill Island Oral History Project.

Thompson, Laurie. Interviewed by Rebecca Sanders, 30 July 2007, Churchill Island Oral History Project.

Published Government Records

Historical Records of Australia Series I, Vol. XII. 230

Historical Records of Australia Series I Vol. XIII.

Historical Records of Australia Series III: Vol. V.

Historical Records of New South Wales Volume IV.

Miller, S., W. Carter, W.G. Stephens, Report of the bushfire Review Committee: on Bush Fire Disaster Preparedness and Response in Victoria, Australia, following the Ash Wednesday Fires 16 February 1983. Melbourne: Government Printer, 1984.

New South Wales Government Gazette, 1836-1850.

Phillip Island Nature Park. Annual Report. Phillip Island: Phillip Island Nature Park, 1996– 2014.

Victorian Government Gazette, 1836–1870.

Victorian Hansard, Volume 8, Session 1861–2, Third Session of Parliament.

Books and Records

Sayers, C. E. ed. Letters from Victorian pioneers: Being a Series of Papers on the Early Occupation of the Colony, the Aborigines, etc. Addressed by Victorian Pioneers to His Excellency Charles Joseph La Trobe, Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Victoria. Melbourne: Heinman, 1969.

Bate, John and F.C. Cavendish. The Cruise around the World of the Flying Squadron, 1869- 1870: Under the command of Rear Admiral G.T. Phipps Hornby. Tower Hill: J.D. Potter, Admiralty Chart Agent, 1871.

Baudin, Nicholas. The Journal of Post Captain Nicholas Baudin Commander-in-Chief of the Corvettes Géographe and Naturaliste. Assigned by Order of the Government to a Voyage of Discovery, Translation by Christine Cornell. Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia, 1974.

Boultbee, John. Journal of a Rambler: The Journal of John Boultbee, edited by June Starke (Auckland, Melbourne, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

Bowden, Keith, ed. Mathew Flinders’ Narrative of Tom Thumb’s Cruise to Canoe Rivulet. South Eastern Historical Association, 1985 231

Bruck, Ludwig. Bruck’s Guide to the Health Resorts of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Sydney: Published at the Australasian Medical Gazette, 1888.

Cole, Harry and Valda, eds. Mr Bass’s Western Port: The Whaleboat Journey. Hastings Hastings–Western Port Historical Society in conjunction with South Eastern Historical Association, 1997.

Cole, Valda, ed. The Summer Survey: The Log of the Lady Nelson 1801–1802: John Murray. Hastings: Hastings-Western Port Historical Society, 2001.

Cotter, Richard. A Cloud of Hapless Foreboding: Assistant Protector William Thomas and the Port Phillip Aborigines, 1839–1840. Sorrento: Nepean Historical Society, 2005.

Durmont D’Urville, Jules S-C. An Account in Two Volumes of Two Voyages to the South Seas by Captain (later Rear-Admiral) JulesS-C Durmont D’Urville of the French Navy to Australia, New Zealand, Oceania 1826–1829 in the corvette Astrolabe and to the Straits of Magellan, Chile, Oceania, South East Asia, Antarctica, New Zealand and Torres Strait 1837–1840 in the corvettes Astrolabe and Zélée. Volume I: Astrolabe 1826–1829. Translated and edited by Helen Roseman. Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1987.

Fillippini, Alessandro. The Table: How to Buy Food, How to Cook It, and How to Serve It. Charles Webster and Co., 1889.

Flemming, James ed., and Charles Grimes. A Journal of Grimes’ Survey: The Cumberland in Port Phillip January-February 1803. Malvern: Banks Society Publications, 2002.

Grant, James. The Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery, Performed in His Majesty’s Vessel the Lady Nelson, of Sixty Tons Burthen, with Sliding Keels, in the Years 1800, 1801, and 1802 to New South Wales. London: T. Egerton, Military Library, Whitehall, 1803.

Humpries, H. Morin. Men of the Time in Australia: Victorian Series, Second Edition. Melbourne: McCarron, Bird and Co., 1882.

Labilliere, F.P. Early History of the Colony of Victoria Vol. 1. London: 1878.

Stokes, John Lort. Discoveries in Australia; With an Account of the Coasts and Rivers Explored and Surveyed During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle in the Years 1837–38–39–40– 41–42–43, by Command of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, also, A Narrative of 232

Captain Owen Stanley’s Visits to the Islands in the Arafūra Sea. London: T. and W. Boone, 1846.

Sutherland, Alexander. Victoria and Its Metropolis, Past and Present, Volume 2A: The Colony and Its People. Melbourne: McCarron, Bird & Co., 1888.

———. Victoria and Its Metropolis, Past and Present, Volume 2B: The Colony and Its People. Melbourne: McCarron, Bird & Co., 1888.

Victoria Railway Department. Picturesque Victoria, and How to Get There : A Handbook for Tourists, Containing General Information Regarding the Summer Resorts Rail, Coaches, Steam-Boats, Fares, etc. Melbourne : Victoria Railway Department, 1987.

Secondary Works

Theses

Ballinger, Robyn. An Inch of Rain and What it Means: Landscapes of the Northern Plains of Victoria, 1836–1930 PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2009

Davis, Fiona Lee. Colouring Within the Lines: Colonialism and the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Station, 1888–1960s, PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2010

Elkner, Cate Jeanne. Making Archives, Making Histories: the Santospirito Project PhD Thesis University of Melbourne, Department of History, 2004.

Faulkner, Roderick, The Acclimatisation Society of Victoria (1861–1873) Honours Thesis Department of History, University of Melbourne, 1983.

Inglis, Andrea Scott. Good Health and Good Company: Nineteenth Century Seaside Resorts on Victoria’s Southern Coast Masters Thesis, Department of History, University of Melbourne, 1997.

———. Claiming the Higher Ground: The Nineteenth Century Hill Station in Australia as a Manifestation of Empire PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2004.

Minchinton, Barbara. ‘That Place’: Nineteenth Century Land Selection in the Otways, Victoria, Australia PhD Thesis University of Melbourne, 2001. 233

Plunket, Leonie Elizabeth. South Gippsland’s Settlement and the Early Surveyors Masters Thesis, University of Melbourne, 2006

Wheeler, Jillian. Who Owns Linton’s Past: Multiple Histories in a Victorian Goldfields Town PhD Thesis, University of Melbourne 2009.

Books and Published Reports

Aitken, Richard. Gardenesque: A Celebration of Australian Gardening. Carlton: Miegunyah Press, 2004.

Alome, Stephen, Weston Bate, David Dunstan, Diana Macmillan, Graeme Kinross Smith and Shurlee Swain. The Australian City: Unit A Marvellous Melbourne. A Study of Nineteenth- Century Urban Growth. Burwood: Deakin University, 1978, revised, 1986.

Amato, Joseph. Rethinking Home: A Case for Writing Local History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Aplin, Graeme. Heritage: Identification, Conservation, and Management, South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Atalay, Sonya. Community-Based Archaeology: Research with, by and for Indigenous and Local Communities. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012.

Attridge, Derek, Geoff Bennington and Robert Young, eds. Post-structuralism and the Question of History. Cambridge; New York; London; New Rochelle; Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1987.

Attwood, Bain and Helen Doyle. Possession: Batman’s Treaty and the Matter of History. Melbourne: Miegunyah Press, imprint of Melbourne University Press, 2009.

Baird, Patricia. Churchill Island, History and Her Story. Phillip Island: Self Published, 2007, second and revised edition, 2012.

Banivanua Mar, Tracey and Penelope Edmonds, eds. Making Settler Colonial Space: Perspectives on Race, Place and Identity. Basingstoke, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Barraclough, Linda and Debra Squires. Steps in Time, a Gippsland Chronology to 1899 Bairnsdale: Kapana Press, 1992. 234

Bassett, Jan, ed. Great Explorations: An Australian Anthology. Oxford; New York; Auckland; Bangkok; Bombay; Calcutta; Cape Town; Dar es Salaam; Delhi; Florence; Hong Kong; Istanbul; Karachi; Kuala Lumpur; Madras; Madrid; Melbourne; Mexico City; Nairobi; Paris; Port Moresby; Singapore; Taipei; Tokyo; Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996.

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Beck, Peter J. ‘Reaching out to a Public Audience.’ In Peter J. Beck. Presenting History: Past and Present Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

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———.1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia. Collingwood: Black Inc, 2013, first published 2011.

Bradley, David and Jocelyn eds. Within the Plains of Paradise: A Brief Social History of Rhyll, Phillip Island. Melbourne: Rhyll History Project Committee, 1997. 235

Byrnes, Giselle. Boundary Markers: Land Surveying and the Colonisation of New Zealand. Wellington: Bridget William Books, 2001

Cable, Mary. Top Drawer: American High Society from the Gilded Age to the Roaring Twenties. New York: Atheneum, 1984.

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Carter, Paul. The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial History. London; Boston: Faber and Faber, 1987.

Clayton, Daniel W. Islands of Truth: The Imperial Fashioning of Vancouver Island. Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 2000.

Clode, Danielle. Voyages to the South Seas: The Search of Terres Australes. Carlton: The Miegunyah Press, an imprint of Melbourne University Press, 2007, 2008.

Cole, Valda. Western Port: Pioneers and Preachers. Melbourne: The Hawthorn Press, 1975.

———. Western Port Chronology, 1799-1839: Exploration to Settlement (Hastings: Shire of Hastings Historical Society, 1984).

Collett, Barry. Wednesdays Closest to the Full Moon: A History of South Gippsland (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1994.

Coombes, Annie E. ed. Rethinking Settler Colonialism: History and Memory in Australia, Canada, Aotearoa New Zealand and South Africa. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 2006.

Connor, Michael. The Invention of Terra Nullius: Historical and Legal Fictions on the Foundation of Australia. Sydney: Macleay Press, 2005.

Conard, Rebecca. Benjamin Shambaugh and the Intellectual Foundation of Public History Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2002.

Copeland, Hugh. The Path of Progress: From the Forests of Yesterday to the Homes of Today Warragul: Shire of Warragul, 1934. 236

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———. Shipping Arrivals and Departures, Sydney, Vol. 1, 1788–1825. Canberra: 1983.

Cutter, June. Churchill Island: A Special Place. A Story of those who Chose Churchill Island as their Haven (Pakenham: South Eastern Independent Newspapers, 1994.

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Appendix A:

Squatting and Settling

Squatting under the administration of the Colony of New South Wales (1836–1850) and the Colony of Victoria (1850–1901)

Squatting in Port Phillip District prior to the 1836 was considered illegal by the British colonial administration, who viewed the Port Phillip District as Crown Lands, and squatters as trespassers. The

Port Phillip Association argued that as they had made a treaty with the Port Phillip’s indigenous peoples (the Kulin Nations), and that they were legal tenants. The Crown did not agree. It now seems possible that from an Indigenous perspective, what the Port Phillip Association had obtained was a temporary right to move through Indigenous lands and utilise resources. Full details and background can be obtained in Bain Atwood’s Possession.

1836 Bill to Restrain the Unauthorised Occupation of Crown Lands

 Squatters were required to take out a pastoral licence, £10 per annum, which allowed them to

take up as much land as they desired, although they were required to furnish the extent of the

pastoral run to the Commissioner of Lands (Sydney).

 Poorly policed as the act made no provision for enforcement.

1839 Act

 Squatters required to take out a pastoral licence, £10 per annum, which allowed them to take

up as much land as they desired, although they were required to furnish the extent of the

pastoral run to the Commissioner of Lands (Sydney).

 Also required to pay per head of stock (cows, sheep and horses). Late payment could result in

forfeiture of run, allowing another squatter to take it up. 254

 Better policed than the preceding act.

1847 Order in Council

 Crown Land available for squatters divided into three categories, settled, intermediate and

unsettled districts. Squatters were able to take out annual leases in settled districts, eight year

leases in intermediate districts and fourteen year leases in the unsettled districts.

 Annual rent of run remained £10 per annum, plus twice yearly stocking fees on cattle, horses

and sheep. Each run now attracted its own fee. Squatters with multiple runs, therefore, now

paid multiple fees. No run to exceed twenty square miles. Not more than 4000 sheep and 500

head of cattle to be depastured on any run, with only a few exceptions.

 Agriculture, mining and logging was strictly forbidden other than for personal use, as the

Order in Council was designed to promote pastoralism.

 Pre-emptive Right. Provided provision for squatters to purchase up to 640 acres of their

pastoral run to safeguard their improvements beyond the settled districts. Land to be sold at

no less than £1 per acre.

Purchase and lease under the Victorian Selection Acts of the 1860s

1860 Nicholson Act

 Special lot. Could only be purchased at auction. Usually related to what had been known as

the settled districts, town allotments or spaces that had formerly been pastoral runs where the

applicant had applied to have the land assessed so that they should be compensated for

‘improvements’. In the last instance, the land would be surveyed and priced according to the

value of its ‘improvements.

 Country. After the area had been surveyed it was available for selection (ie by lottery rather

than at auction). The selector was required to pay for half of the selection at ₤1 per acre, and

could chose to buy or lease the other half for up to seven years, and then pay remaining

balance. Land was available in sizes of between 80 and 640 acres. Applicants could apply for 255

new land on a yearly basis. Squatters and wealthy citizens took great advantage of this last

clause by encouraging family, friends and others to purchase in their name, while they

supplied the money.

1862 Duffy Act

 Division between Special and country abolished (New land opened up under selection only,

old land opened up in 1860, however, retained the old definitions).

 Smallest lot size available reduced to 40 acres.

 Lease arrangements reduced to two shillings and six pence per acre, and length of lease

extended to eight years, after which the selector owned the land.

1865 Grant Act

 Selectors no longer needed to buy at least one half of the allotment.

 Before the lot could be bought the selector had to live on the selection for three years and

make improvements of ₤1 per acre. Selectors could not purchase the property outright in the

first three years. This last measure was designed to reduce the excessive purchase by

speculators, squatters and the wealthy, but was ineffective, as much land had already been

taken up by them.

 Lease arrangements changed: Rent was reduced to two shillings per acre, the lease was

available for seven years. Unlike the prior act, this money did not form part of the eventual

purchase price, which was paid separately.

1869 Amending Grant Act

 Land was first held under licence. The selector was required to cultivate at least ten percent of

the selection in the first three years. 256

 Upon successful cultivation of ten percent in three years the selector was allowed to lease the

land for another seven years, provided they had lived on the selection for at least two and

quarter years, and improved and enclosed their lot.

 Rental once more formed part of the purchase price, and selectors were allowed to purchase at

any time after the first three years. This measure was designed to assist less wealthy settlers to

be able to purchase land.

Information drawn from J.M. Powell, The Public Lands of Australia Felix, 63–118; Stephan Roberts,

The Squatting Age in Australia, 1835–1847, 50–55 73–80, 236–269; Richard Waterhouse, The Vision

Splendid, 21–22; Charles Fahey et all, PROVguide 55 Land Records; and Public Records Office of

Victoria, Land Acts in Victoria to 1884 Available at http://www.prov.vic.gov.au/peopleparliament/qt_landacts.asp, accessed 15 February 2010.

Minerva Access is the Institutional Repository of The University of Melbourne

Author/s: Sanders, Eileen Rebecca

Title: A history of Churchill Island: settlement, land use and the making of a heritage site

Date: 2015

Persistent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11343/56932

File Description: A History of Churchill Island: Settlement, Land Use and the Making of a Heritage Site