Hidden treasures and stories from our collection
Traffic congestion in a big city like Sydney is never far from the headlines and for those of us who need to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge it is a daily reality. But traffic congestion in cities is nothing new. In London in the 1630s the clogging of narrow city streets by the increased use of horse-drawn vehicles was causing considerable outrage amongst the populace.
Continue reading ‘Solving Traffic Congestion in 1634′
Collection of the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. 86/741. Gift of the State Rail Authority Archives, 1986.
Would you have guessed the mystery rail object on display in the Museum’s marquee at Steamfest this year? Visitors to this event held in Maitland, NSW, over the weekend of 28/29th April were encouraged to have a go.
Sydney Harbour Bridge from Dawes Point, Photography Jean -Francois Lanzarone Powerhouse Museum
What’s the fuss you say?
Well today is the birthday of an Australian icon, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, fondly known as the coathanger. Now eighty years old the Bridge has become a symbol of Sydney and of Australia, its arch shaped structure adding definition to the beautiful harbour and inspiring songs, artworks, photographs and poems like this one by Dorothy Auchterlonie’s (Green) 1940 poem Kaleidoscope:
Twinkle Twinkle little stars
On a million motor- cars
Along the Harbour Bridge so high
Like a coat-hanger in the sky
Lores Bonney and her aircraft, My Little Ship, at Archerfield Aerodrome in 1932 before her round-Australia flight. Collection: Powerhouse Museum.
In celebration of International Women’s Day for 2012 I’d like to highlight the amazing short but inspiring aviation career of Maude (Lores) Bonney (1897-1994), one of Australia’s pioneers. Lores’ passion for flying began after a flight in 1928 with aviation legend, Bert Hinkler, her husband’s cousin. In 1930 she began flying lessons in secret while her husband, Harry Bonney, played golf. When Lores confessed her aviation pursuits, he helped her buy a DH60 Gipsy Moth aircraft which she called affectionately “My Little Ship”. Being a leather manufacturer he had two full-length suede flying suits made for her.
Continue reading ‘Celebrating the Australian Aviatrix Lores Bonney’
Australian-made sledge used on the 1911-14 Mawson Expedition, Powerhouse Museum Collection, H8143, Gift of Australian Museum, 1967.
What do Douglas Mawson, aviation pioneer Lawrence Hargrave, a Sydney car body builder and the Klondike gold rush have in common? They are all part of the riddle of the Museum’s sledges.
In my last post I wrote about the Norwegian sledge in the Museum’s collection used on Mawson’s 1911-14 Australian Antarctic Expedition. According to Mawson’s “The Home of the Blizzard” he not only took 20 Norwegian-made sledges but 17 sledges made in Sydney. The Museum has 3 sledges used on this expedition, one has a manufacturer’s plate indicating it was made by L. Hargan of Norway but the other two are quite different in appearance.
During my research on the sledges I found the documentary evidence on the Australian-made sledges was patchy and inconclusive. Perhaps the sledges themselves could help explain their origins. Sue Gatenby, the Museum’s Conservation Scientist enlisted the help of botanical expert, John Ford, to analyse all the sledges in our collection. In fact we have six, three from Mawson’s expedition and another three said to be from Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated 1912 expedition.
Botanist, John Ford, taking timber samples from the Museum’s sledges. Photo Powerhouse Museum Collection.
The botanical expert took very tiny samples for later analysis. He verified that Mawson’s Norwegian sledge was hickory, another was also hickory but the third was Corymbia (Eucalyptus) maculata or spotted gum, an Australian hardwood. But who on earth would have made a sledge of Australian gum trees? The very idea of making Antarctic sledges here in sunny Sydney seems as bizarre as an Icelandic manufacturer making surf boards or bikinis.
With his tiny torch, the botanist carefully examined the grain of the sledges. While running his eye along one of the cross pieces he asked “Does the name Worsfold mean anything to you?” Yes! I was so excited! By chance the week before one of our archivists, Jill Chapman, who knew I was researching the sledges, sent me a photocopy of a 1915 letter in the Museum’s Archives from one Alexander Worsfold, a car body builder of King Street, St Peters, an inner Western Sydney suburb. But I wondered at the time how did he fit in? (Trove wasn’t then online.) I should add that the sledges had all been out of the store and thoroughly cleaned and repaired in our conservation labs during the 1980s and photographed several times in the studio yet no-one had ever notice the name Worsfold impressed into the timber.
Alexander Worsfold’s letterhead advised that he was a “wholesale manufacturer of motor and carriage ware, especially wheels and bodies”. This was when motor car bodies were still hand-built of timber. His printed letterhead further confirmed his involvement in supplying several Antarctic explorers as it notes: “Specialities: Designer and Manufacturer of Sleighs, Skis, Toboggans and Antarctic Appliances for Dr Mawson’s Expedition, Captain Scott’s Relief, Professor David’s Magnetic Discovery”. Added in pen at the end of this list is: “Shackleton Expd 1914″.
In 1915 Worsfold had written to the Museum seeking support for his application to help the War effort as he had specific knowledge of Australian timbers. He enlisted in the AIF and went into the 9th Australian Field Ambulance where he designed a portable stretcher which looks remarkably like a sledge. Worsfold was also involved with Lawrence Hargave and his timber cellular box kites.
The timber for Worsfold’s sledges was supplied by Allen Taylor & Co. who had numerous timber mills all over New South Wales. They were also “powellised” or heated to rapidly season and preserve them. At this time there was great interest, and research undertaken, at the Museum regarding the commercial use of Australian timber. But who had knowledge in Sydney at the time to design sledges? It is said to have come from Alfred Charles Samuels who’d been at the Canadian 1896-1901 Klondike gold rush. His nickname was Klondike Dick and he ironically ended up being Mayor of the beachside suburb of Manly.
And how did Mawson find the Australian sledges in Antarctic? In “The Home of the Blizzard” he noted that the ones “built in Sydney, of Australian hard woods, included mountain ash which tended to split and spotted gum which was strong but heavy.” I can tell you that the runners on our Norwegian sledge are considerably worn but the Australian ones showed little wear.
This all goes to show that object research can be a work in progress. We add bits and gradually build up the story.
Steam yacht 'Aurora' leaving Hobart Image:Source unknown
Saturday, December 2, arrived and then began final leave-taking. “God speed” messages were received from far and wide, and intercessory services were held in the cathedrals of Sydney and Hobart… All the staff were united for the space of an hour at luncheon. Then proceeding to the vessel, I had to push my way through the vast crowd assembled at the wharf to give us a parting cheer. At 4 p.m. sharp, the telegraph was rung for the engines, and, with a final expression of good wishes from the Governor and Lady Barron, we glided out into the channel.”- Sir Douglas Mawson “The Home of the Blizzard”
Working on a sledge harness on the 'Aurora'. Image: Courtesy State Library of NSW
It’s 100 years today since Dr Douglas Mawson, Australia’s most famous Antarctic explorer and scientist, left Hobart, Tasmania, aboard the steam yacht Aurora bound for Antarctica on the 1911-1914 Australian Antarctic Expedition (AAE).
H8144, sledge used on the Mawson expedition. Collection: Powerhouse Museum
For years one of my most favourite Museum objects has sat quietly in the our basement store, only seen by a small number of privileged visitors on Basement Tours – one of Mawson’s principal sledges from this expedition even stencilled with his name “Mawson – Adelaide”. (We have three in all!).
Can you imagine what this sledge would have seen if it could speak to us? On 2 December 1911 it was one of the 20 Norwegian-made sledges lashed to the ship’s chart-house, an extension of the bridge, and on the poop deck of the ship crowded with supplies. Mawson had ordered the sledges earlier in the year from L. Hagen & Co. of Christiania (Oslo) a sporting goods manufacturer of skis, ice-skates and rifles, who also supplied various British and Norwegian Antarctic expeditions. It was made of hickory and American ash. A further 17 sledges were made in Sydney but that’s another story for the next post.
This expedition was undertaken during the pioneering years of Australia’s involvement in Antarctica when Mawson’s team undertook mapping and magnetic observations, collected geological specimens and undertook weather notes. Teams of three men with three sledges would go out for weeks fanning out for a distance of up to 300 km from the hut at Cape Denison.
Each of the sledging parties had similar equipment loaded onto the three sledges. The equipment list for these makes fascinating reading today: a Willesden-drill tent; three one-man reindeer-fur sleeping bags; cooking equipment including mugs, spoons, scales, matches and fuel; a repair outfit with spare copper wire, needles and thread to repair the harnesses, tents and clothes; a medical kit with bandages, ophthalmic drugs for treating snow blindness, scissors, forceps, scalpel and surgical needles; photographic equipment with a quarter-plate camera; and surveying equipment including a 3-inch transit theodolite, logarithmic tables, note books, maps, dividers, set squares, prismatic compass and clinometer. Other equipment taken included: binoculars, a hypsometer (for determining altitude), thermometers and specimen labels; “sporting” equipment including a 22-gauge rifle, ammunition, knife, sharpening stone and fishing line; a waterproof clothes bag, reindeer skin boots (finnesko) stuffed with moisture-absorbent sennaegrass (a dry grass from Lappland) and spare clothing; a pick, spades, skis and boots, crampons, harnesses for men and tow ropes. To set up depots they carried a depot flag and bamboo pole, stays, and damp-proof tins to deposit records at depots. A total of six one-gallon (4.55 litre) tins of kerosene fuel, nine weeks’ supply of food for the men, and dried seal meat, blubber and pemmican for the dogs, were also packed. The total weight of the three laden sledges was 1,723 pounds (781 kg).
But the scientific importance of Mawson’s 1911-1914 AAE expedition has been overshadowed by an amazing trek undertaken by Mawson himself. On 10 November 1913 Mawson, accompanied by Dr Xavier Mertz and Lieutenant B. (Belgrave) E.S. Ninnis, left the base at Cape Denison, taking three sledges and sixteen dogs. After thirty-four days of hard travelling they reached a point 315 miles (507 km) inland from the base before heading back. Tragically Ninnis died when he and his sledge, which was carrying most of the food, fell into a deep crevasse. On the long journey back the two men ate the dogs and Mertz died from cold and exhaustion. Mawson struggled on alone, persistently taking his meteorological readings and cutting his sledge in half to reduce its weight. He arrived back at the hut only hours after his ship had left to return to Australia. Mawson remained in Antarctica with the wintering party and returned home in 1914.
Mawson's cut down sledge used on his epic journey. Image:Courtesy National Library of Australia
The AAE expedition is now remembered more for this trek, in which Mawson made a remarkable and unsurpassed solo sledging journey of about 100 miles (161 km), than for its scientific achievements.
If you’d like to see Mawson’s sledge it’s now on display at the Powerhouse Museum’s Discovery Centre at Castle Hill.
B2562, aircraft model of Bristol Boxkite flown by W E Hart and J Hammond, made by E Mead and R Coombes, 1978, gift of The Air Force Association, Parramatta Branch in memory of Mr E Mead Collection: Powerhouse Museum
Today celebrates 100 years since an adventurist dentist and self taught aviator landed in Parramatta Park in a Bristol Boxkite.
The aviator William Ewart “Billy” Hart, made one of the earliest and longest flights in New South Wales, when he flew from Penrith and landed in Parramatta Park.
The model aircraft featured above was made by Mr Edgar Meade and Mr Ray Coombes to celebrate the flights of Joseph Hammond and William Ewart ‘Billy’ Hart. Its one tenth the size of a Bristol boxkite plane and was used in a display for Foundation Week in Parramatta in November 1976, prior to being acquired by the Museum in 1978. lt adds to the Museum’s collection of Australian aviation material and models.
Billy Hart landing in Parramatta Park, 1911. Image Courtesy Mr Robert Shayler, donor. Collection: Parramatta Park Trust
Parramatta Park curator Verena Mauldon says research has shown that
Billy Hart The young dentist, from a wealthy Parramatta family, had a keen interest in mechanics and purchased his own Boxkite for ₤1 300. He had some lessons, but crashed the biplane early on and had to rebuild his aircraft from the debris in his father’s Parramatta workshop.
Billy became a local sensation as he tinkered with the machine for months on the ground and then taught himself to fly.
This flight was acclaimed as a remarkable performance, both across the international aviation world and by the startled locals who watched him land on the Parramatta Park cricket fields . In this first cross country flight in New South Wales, Hart astonished the community by travelling a distance of 18 miles (29km) in under 20 minutes, and his aircraft reached an altitude of 3000 feet.
Image from Jubilee History of Parramatta, 1861-1911. p196.
In 1912 Hart crashed a monoplane he had built at Richmond, and was hospitalised for two months. During the First World War he served as a flying instructor in No1 Squadron of the Australian Flying Corps in Egypt and Britain, but was sent home as medically unfit. Hart’s flying career was brief but illustrious, and he was remarkable in that he survived to resume his career as a dentist in 1918. He remained interested in aviation until his death in 1943.”
The model will be on display at the Parramatta Heritage Centre from mid November 2011 until January 2012.
References
Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate, 4 November 1911, p.6; 12 January 1912, p.6; 10 February 1912, p11 and 3 July 1912, p2
The history of picnics goes back to medieval times in England and Europe when elaborate outdoor feasts were enjoyed by the wealthy. Medieval hunting feasts and Renaissance era country banquets were the forerunners of the casual outdoor picnics we enjoy today. These feasts would traditionally serve cold meats like hams, baked meats and pastries. Now accessible to most people, the contemporary picnic can contains an extraordinary diversity of food from tabouli and hummus to spring rolls, pies and prawns.
2008/165/1-70 Glass plate negative (1 of 193), picnic at Freshwater photographer possibly Arthur Phillips, Australia, 1895
Collection: Powerhouse Museum
This is one of the Museum’s earliest images of a picnic, it’s from a glass plate negative depicting a picnic scene at Freshwater, with young men and women and a small child. Ida Phillips, the photographer’s sister, is at the far right and the man in front of her holding her hand, is probably Joe Hindwood, her husband. (Married 1900). The woman second from left is holding a cigarette. Cricket stumps and bat are visible on one side, and inscribed on a billy in the foreground is the text ‘Freshwater 1895 AP’ To the right of the billy is an early picnic hamper, similar to the one in the Museum’s collection.
85/2502 Picnic hamper, motoring, leather case / wicker / bone / glass / paper/ porcelain, used by Major A U John, maker unknown, England, 1910-1930 Collection: Powerhouse Museum
The image below depicts a stylish if uncomfortable looking picnic with its participants wearing their best hats and using porcelain tea cups. I noticed the children and adults appear to be sitting directly on the ground in the bush.
1890s picnic in the trees Collection: Powerhouse Museum
Devices to aid the picnicker, often adaptations of household items like baskets, cups and plates were offered for sale in the ‘Store Catalogues’ of the late 1800s and early 1900s, like those of Anthony Hordens and later David Jones.
The picnic case shown below is a Victorian era case around the mid to late 1800s made out of wicker work.
A7665 Picnic basket. Wicker work. Fitted with tins, china & utensils. Victorian. (LC).
The popularity of picnics in the 20th century ran parallel with the rise of access to transport systems, from rail to bike and most significantly the motor car. As well as family and bush walking picnics there were company picnic days like ones organised by Wunderlich Limited from the early 1900s.
A7437-28 Photographs, Photographic prints, Wunderlich Limited, Redfern, New South Wales, Australia, c 1899 - 1976 Collection: Powerhouse Museum
The rise of the picnic basket or case reflects Australians’ increased leisure time and, the desire to bring domestic comforts into weekend or holiday pursuits like picnics, barbecues, camping and caravanning.
The 1950s picnic set pictured below has various components that reflect the changes in and development of the then ‘new plastics’ now so much part of everything we buy. The suitcase fabric is made from Rexine, a polyvinyl upholstery cloth, made by Armonde Ltd, Leather Cloth and ICI in the late 1940s and represented in the Museum’s important plastics collection. The plastic used in the cups and saucers is also of particular interest, being Bandalasta, the name given to a series of early plastic wares made from a synthetic resin by British chemists in 1920s. The Trademarked Thermos contained in this set is also clad in Bandalasta.
2010/87 Picnic case and contents, Rexine cloth / metal / plastic/ glass, made by Brexton, England, 1950s, used Australia, 1950-1989 Collection : Powerhouse Museum
Gift of representatives of the NYPD and FDNY to the Premier of NSW the Hon Bob Carr MP, presented to the Powerhouse Museum, 2002.
Sunday 11 September is the tenth anniversary of that horrendous and highly symbolic event, the ramming of two aircraft into skyscrapers in New York City and one into the Pentagon in Washington DC. This portion of a girder cut from one of the World Trade Center buildings, distorted and blackened by fire, serves as a poignant, physical reminder of the event.
The relic was brought to Australia by a group of New York fire fighters and police officers who took part in the rescue and clean-up. They visited Sydney in February 2002 as guests of the NSW government and donated this object to the Premier in honour of the ten Australians who died alongside 3000 others that day. Its value as a museum object is symbolic, commemorating not just those ten but all who died, including those on board a fourth plane that did not reach its target, and all who took part in the rescue and recovery operation.
The hijackers aimed to create carnage, havoc and fear. Symbolism determined their choice of targets: the centre of world capitalism and the nerve centre of US defence. Symbolism also determined their choice of weapon: three airliners carrying large quantities of jet fuel, perhaps sourced from the Middle East’s massive oilfields.
The two skyscrapers were symbols of American technological leadership and economic success, soaring above the land and casting shadows on the water. They were made of steel, concrete and glass, all materials known and used since ancient times. They were clad with aluminium, a material that only became widely available in the twentieth century – thanks to Charles Martin Hall, the American who devised a process to separate it cheaply from its ores.
Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of Coles Myer Pty Ltd, 1997
Skyscrapers embody a good deal of engineering know-how. A key technology is the elevator with safety brake, invented in 1853 by another American, Elisha Otis. The Otis style governor above spent its working life in a shed perched on top of a Sydney retail building, ready to activate a brake if the lift it was connected to started falling too fast. Buildings could not be built more than a few storeys tall before the advent of the safety lift.
Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of Scott Czarnecki, 2004.
The electric lift motor is another key enabling technology for multi-storey buildings. This lift motor with integrated winch spent its working life in a shed at the top of another Sydney retail building, reliably starting at full load whenever someone pushed a button and unerringly stopping the lift level with the required floor. It was made in England around 1915, but the firm that made it was eventually taken over by Otis Elevator, the world’s largest lift company.
Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of Mr and Mrs E.A. and V.I. Crome, 1984
The first successful powered flight was achieved by two Americans, brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, in 1903. Many other researchers had been trying to develop flying machines, including Australia’s own Lawrence Hargrave, whose box kite (below) probably contributed to the design of the Wright flyer’s wings. Hargrave also investigated animal movement and experimented with model ornithopters, making several different engines and a turbine to power them. Having put so much of his time and energy into pursuing the dream of flight, he expressed the hope that aircraft would not be used as war machines.
Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of Lawrence Hargrave, 1915.
Of course, it was not long before planes were used in warfare. They grew bigger, stronger and faster, but there was a limit to how fast reciprocating engines could spin propellers. In the 1930s and 40s in England, Frank Whittle was the first to develop gas turbine engines, which could move planes much faster than piston engines. Engineers in Germany and America also developed turbine engines. The engine below was made by Whittle’s company, Power Jets Ltd, in 1943.
Powerhouse Museum Collection. Gift of the Ministry of Supply, United Kingdom, 1951.
The American-made turbo-engine aeroplanes hijacked on 9/11 were not sinister war machines bristling with gun turrets and bombs, but sleek civilian craft similar to the Boeing 767 depicted by the model below. Their fuselage and wings were clad, like the twin towers of the World Trade Center, with that modern, lightweight, corrosion-resistant product of American ingenuity, aluminium.
Powerhouse Museum Collection.
Just as we rarely think about the technology that enables skyscrapers to exist, we rarely worry about the civilian planes whizzing around our skies. Bringing the two together on that day in 2001 was a shocking act that changed the world, opening new fault lines and accentuating old enmities. Ten years later, the fault lines have stretched around the world and destroyed or disrupted thousands more lives. And while technology has made our lives more interesting, healthy and comfortable, it is certainly a two-edged sword in the hands of those with enmity in their hearts.
Image courtesy NASA
In my blog post on April 12, to mark the 50th anniversary of the first person in space, I referred to the fact that that same date was also the anniversary of the first flight of the US Space Transportation System, generally known as the Space Shuttle.
With the STS-134 mission coming soon, marking the final flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour, the Space Shuttle program is drawing to a close after 30 years of operations.
Conceived in the 1960s and developed in the 70s, when the United States turned its attention away from the Apollo program and lunar exploration to focus on the development of a space infrastructure in Low Earth Orbit, the Space Transportation System was intended to provide a versatile “space truck” capable of carrying both crew and cargo into space and supporting a wide variety of orbital operations. The Shuttle was proposed as a vehicle that would reduce the cost of access to space through re-useable components and the amortisation of its development costs over a high number of flights per year. However, the competing technical requirements of its intended military and civilian roles, coupled with budget cuts during development, resulted in a vehicle that was only partially re-usable (the Orbiter and the Solid Rocket Boosters), with high maintenance requirements and inherent design flaws, that would prevent it from living up to the high flight rate and ambitious program goals originally planned.
Images courtesy of NASA
The image on the left side shows the Space Shuttle Columbia lifting off on its maiden flight, April 12, 1981 ( Note the white painted External Tank, later discontinued in order to save weight).
The image on the right shows the Space Shuttle Atlantis landing on the runway at Kennedy Space Centre at the completion of the STS-86 mission in 1997.
Despite its drawbacks, the Shuttle nevertheless is a “remarkable flying machine”, linking the technologies of rocketry and aviation in its ability to launch like a rocket and make a runway landing like an aircraft. It is capable of carrying crew of 8, together with 24 tonnes of cargo, into orbit and has been used to launch satellites (including Australia’s first Aussat domestic communications satellites) and interplanetary probes, build and service the International Space Station (ISS), transport crew to the Mir space station and ISS, conduct microgravity research on orbit with the European Space Agency’s Spacelab laboratory module and launch and service the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as carrying out classified US military missions.
Six Shuttle Orbiters have been built during the life of the program, each named after a famous exploration vessel: Enterprise (the atmospheric test vehicle, named after the iconic spacecraft from the television series Star Trek, as a result of a letter campaign by Star Trek fans, but also the name of several significant US ships); Columbia and Challenger, the first and second operational vehicles, which were both destroyed as a result of accidents stemming from the systems inherent design flaws, each with the loss of all seven crew members (Challenger was lost 73 seconds after launch in January 1986, while Columbia was destroyed 16 minutes before touchdown in 2003); Discovery (the Orbiter which made the most flights), Atlantis (which will make the final flight of the Shuttle program at the end of June) and Endeavour (built as a replacement for Challenger and named for Captain Cook’s vessel). On this year’s April 12 anniversary, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the US museums that would become home to these four remaining Orbiters: unfortunately, museums outside the United States were not eligible to receive a Space Shuttle, so there was no possibility that one would make its way to the Powerhouse Museum.
Mock up of the forward section of a Shuttle Orbiter: Image Powerhouse Museum
But, as visitors to the Museum will know, the Powerhouse Space exhibition does feature a full size external mockup of the forward section of a Shuttle Orbiter. Originally installed for the opening of the first Powerhouse Space display in 1988, this mockup now houses the introductory section of the current exhibition’s “Living and Working in Space” theme. As a corporate contribution to Australia’s Bicentennary celebrations in 1988, the construction of this mockup was generously funded by the builders of the Space Shuttle Orbiter, Rockwell International (now part of the Boeing aerospace company, which also sponsored the construction of the Museum’s Space Station Habitation Module mockup).
Model, US Space Shuttle, plastic / metal / wood, made by Pacific Miniatures Alhambra, California United States of America, 1981-1986, Collection Powerhouse Museum
To mark the announcement of their sponsorship in 1986, Rockwell also donated to the museum this 1:100 scale model of the Space Transportation System, showing the Orbiter, External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters in their launch configuration. Constructed by Pacific Miniatures, California, this model (one of three in different scales held in the Museum’s collections) is an excellent example of the type of gift model that companies use to promote their products. In the 1980s and 90s, it decorated the Director’s office and was recently displayed in The 80s are Back’s timeline section.
While our digitisation project is well underway, with 80% of collection objects currently listed online, there is much more work to be done. Your donation will assist the Powerhouse to add high quality photographs and full background information for the 50% of online objects with incomplete listings.
