Collections and the nation: Science, history and the national museum of Australia

Historical Records of Australian Science

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 251-289

  Robin, Libby ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 10844279645     PISSN: 07273061     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1071/HR02013     Document Type: Review

References (162)

1. Letter to R. P. Stone 1 June 1959, (Royal Society of Canberra (RSC) Collection, Australian Academy of Science Archives (AASA), Box 60/7).
2. Ronald Strahan, Rare and Curious Specimens: An Illustrated History of the Australian Museum 1827-1979, (Australian Museum, Sydney, 1979), pp. 7-14. The year was 1827 or 1829, depending on your point of view.
3. Carolyn Rasmussen (together with 46 specialist contributors), A Museum for the People: A History of Museum Victoria and its Predecessor Institutions, 1854-2000, (Scribe Publications with Museum Victoria, Carlton North, Victoria, 2001). The Melbourne Museum still has an 'Australia Gallery'. X See review of this by Kate Darian-Smith, Australian Historical Studies, 117 (2001), pp. 351-353.
4. Ian McShane, 'Building a national Museum of Australia: a history', Public History Review, 7 (1998), pp. 75-88, especially pp. 76-78.
5. Arthur T. Woodward, 'A plea for a national museum', in Library Association of Australasia, Transactions and Proceedings of the Third General Meeting, (McCarron, Bird & Co., Melbourne, 1902), pp. 93-96, quote on p. 93.
6. According to Section 6.1(a) of the National Museum of Australia Act 1980 it is defined as all historical material held when Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (No.2) 1985 received Royal Assent (Section 3) and, according to Section 8, includes specimens and animals that are the property of the Commonwealth by virtue of the schedules attached to the Zoological Museum Agreement Act 1924 and the Australian Institute of Anatomy Agreement Act 1931.
7. See for example, Keith Windschuttle, 'How not to run a museum: people's history at the post-modern museum', Quadrant, 15 (2001), pp. 11-19.
8. Tom Griffiths, Hunters and Collectors: the Antiquarian Imagination in Australia, (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996), especially pp. 9-27.
9. All State Museums have evolved into very different organisations since foundation, but their founding dates are as follows (information from respective web-sites, accessed 29 July 2002): Australian Museum (Sydney), 1827; (National) Museum of Victoria, 1854; Queensland Museum, 1861; Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (Hobart), 1862; South Australian Museum, 1862; Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery Launceston, 1891 (founded on collections of the Launceston Mechanics Institute, 1840s); Western Australian Museum (Perth Museum), 1891. At the time of Federation, the Northern Territory was part of South Australia. The Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery was founded in 1969.
10. See Professor Colin MacKenzie, 'The medical importance of the native animals of Australia', document circulated to Members of Parliament, ca 1930, (Government Printer, Melbourne, not dated) from the Archive of David Kaus, ref: 1/116-8; X also Monica MacCallum, 'Sir William Colin MacKenzie (1877-1938)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, 10 (1891-1939, Lat-Ner), eds Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle (Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1986), pp. 306-308.
11. Jennifer McCulloch, 'Creatures of culture: the animal protection and preservation movements in Sydney 1880-1930', unpublished PhD thesis, (University of Sydney, 1993). McCulloch argues that because of the popularity of the koala, governments and the fur trade 'relinquished' it so they could continue to hunt kangaroos and possums (p. 221).
12. (C. Parker, Melbourne, 1918-1919). See also MacCallum, 'Sir William Colin MacKenzie (1877-1938)', p. 307. In 1920, the State authorities granted MacKenzie 80 acres at Healesville to the east of Melbourne, to use as a field station. He vacated this at the end of 1927, and recommended that it be expanded as a national park. The Sir Colin MacKenzie Sanctuary (now Healesville Sanctuary) was officially opened in May 1934, following his suggestions.
13. Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, 105 (16 August 1923), p. 2839.
14. Sir George Currie and John Graham, The Origins of CSIRO: Science and the Commonwealth Government 1901-1926, (CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 1966), p. v. The period they were referring to was 1916-1926, after the establishment by the W. M. Hughes government of the Advisory Council of Science and Industry, and leading up to the establishment of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1926.
15. They were formally valued in March 1927 at £100,000. Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works (Chaired by G. H. Mackay) on the 'National Museum of Australian Zoology, Canberra', (Australian Archives A1818/3, Item 18 barcode 139729). Quote about 'without price', p. vi. Estimate based on offers from the United States.
16. Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works (chaired by G. H. Mackay) on the 'National Museum of Australian Zoology, Canberra', (Australian Archives A1818/3, Item 18 barcode 139729). The Horne, Black and Nankivell ethnological collections and W. W. Froggatt's entomological ones were 'promised to the nation', not necessarily to a 'National Museum of Zoology'. The slippage between collections and institutions was one of the problems of this report. In fact the Froggatt collection went to CSIR's Division of Entomology, as discussed below.
17. Graeme Davison, 'National museums in a global age: observations abroad and reflections at home', in National Museums: Negotiating Histories, eds Darryl McIntyre and Kirsten Wehner (Conference Proceedings, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2001).
18. A. C. D. Rivett (Chair), ['Rivett Report'] Report of committee appointed to advise on the general question of a National Museum at Canberra, (Australian Archives, A 458/1 AJ120/6, October 1928), 9
19. There was also strong ethnological work in South Australia about this time, under Norman Tindale, who joined the South Australian Museum in 1917 and was Assistant Entomologist from 1925, then Curator of Anthropology from the late 1920s until 1962. Tindale's collections were housed at the South Australian Museum, whereas Radcliffe-Brown was more concerned that there should be a 'national' collection.
20. Warwick Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness: Science, Health and Racial Destiny in Australia, (Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2002), p. 239.
21. Radcliffe-Brown to Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, 30 November 1928, (AA AJ 120/6).
22. The report, dated August 1927, referred to the existing collections of Papua New Guinea and to new work being undertaken in the Northern Territory, Queensland and the Solomon Islands, but the Prime Minister did not see it until 1929, long after the Rivett report was commissioned. Quote from p. 1.
23. A. C. D. Rivett to Senator Rt. Hon. Sir G. F. Pearce, 2 August 1928 (AA AJ120/6).
24. Reply from Pearce, 18 September 1928 (AA AJ120/6). The question of the 'National Museum of Ethnology' recommended by the Australian National Research Council was part of this brief.
25. Rivett Report, p. 6.
26. Rivett Report, pp. 3-4.
27. Rivett Report, pp. 3-4.
28. W. C. MacKenzie, 'The importance of Zoology to Medical Science', in Proceedings of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, ed. C. E. Lord, 19 (Government Printer, 1929), pp. 235-242.
29. MacKenzie, 'The importance of Zoology to Medical Science', p. 237.
30. MacKenzie, 'The importance of Zoology to Medical Science', p. 241.
31. Mechanics' Institutes in Australia were established in Hobart in 1827 (and again in 1849), Sydney (1833) and Melbourne (1839), with Geelong and Portland following in the 1840s. The period following the gold rushes saw their numbers expand rapidly. They extended all over the populous Victoria in particular, but also in other states, offering regional centres for scientific design, the arts and technical knowledge. There is an excellent introduction to the philosophy of the Mechanics' Institutes in Stephen Murray-Smith and Anthony John Dare, The Tech: A Centenary History of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, (Hyland House, Melbourne, 1987). See also Paul Jones, 'Education, enlightenment and entertainment: a history of the Mechanics' Institute movement in Victoria', unpublished Public History thesis, (Monash University, 1994). X On their locations and their recent condition see Pam Baragwanath and Janette Hodgson, An Inventory of Mechanics' Institutes in Victoria, Vol.1, (Historic Places Section, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Melbourne, 1998).
32. J. Kociumbas, 'Science as cultural ideology: Museums and Mechanics' Institutes in early New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land', Labour History, 64 (1993), pp. 17-31. Quote is from p. 17.
33. See also Margaret Anderson and Andrew Reeves, 'Contested identities: museums and the nation in Australia', in Museums and the Making of 'Ourselves': The Role of Objects in National Identity, ed. Flora E. S. Kaplan (Leicester University Press, London and New York, 1994), pp. 79-124.
34. Sara Maroske, 'Mueller's educational collection of plants', Botanic Magazine, 6 (1995), p. 35. The Botanical Specimen Book lodged by Mueller in the Heathcote Mechanics' Institute library is held in the National Historical Collection at the National Museum of Australia.
35. Bernard Smith discusses the history of this idea in Place, Taste and Tradition: A Study of Australian Art since 1788, (Ure Smith, Sydney, 1945). Quote is from p. 87. Education in both art and science were equally invoked, for example, in the foundation of the Hobart Mechanics' Institute (p. 89).
36. G. H. Mackay (Chair), ['Mackay Report'] Report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works on the 'National Museum of Australian Zoology, Canberra', (Australian Archives A1818/3, Item 18 barcode 139729). Minutes of Evidence (1927), p. 1, attached to the Mackay Report.
37. M. McKernan, Here is Their Spirit: A History of the Australian War Memorial 1917-1990, (University of Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1991).
38. Mackay Report. The report estimated the cost of the proposed building, including the reservation and associated residences, at £87,080 in 1927.
39. The building now houses Screensound Australia, in Acton, opposite the Australian Academy of Science.
40. Thus he perpetuated the field station work he had begun at Healesville in 1920.
41. Ian McShane, pers. comm. 14 November 2002, on the basis of his interview with Cumpston's daughter, who recalled considerable friction between Cumpston and MacKenzie. Cumpston was foundation Director-General of Health from 1921-1945, overseeing the move to Canberra in 1928. Health was one of the first departments to move north, something that was regarded as a retrograde step by some. See the brief summary of the department's activities in the 1920s at http://www.health.gov.au/fact2.pdf, (accessed November 2002). X For a full departmental history, see Francesca Beddie, Putting Life into Years: the Commonwealth's Role in Australia's Health Since 1901, (Department of Health and Aged Care, Canberra, 2001).
42. Michael Roe, 'John Howard Lidgett Cumpston (1880-1954)', in Australian Dictionary of Biography, 8 (1891-1939, Cl-Gib), eds Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle (Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 1981), pp. 174-176.
43. McShane, 'Building a national Museum of Australia: a history', Public History Review, 7 (1998), p. 82.
44. Anderson, The Cultivation of Whiteness, p. 240.
45. Griffiths, Hunters and Collectors, p. 81. These 'collections' were authorized by the National Museum of Victoria and shared between the Institute of Anatomy and the University of Melbourne.
46. Letter to Rt Hon. Sir S. M. Bruce, Prime Minister from Alex J. Gibson, Hon. Secretary ANRC, 29 February 1928, in Australian Archives (A458 AJ 120/6 barcode 86115).
47. Alexander Macleay of course brought a famous international insect collection with him in 1825, when he came to be colonial secretary for NSW. He and his son William bequeathed this to the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney. It was not, however, a major collection of Australian insects.
48. This comment, which originated with Ian Common at CSIRO's Division of Entomology, was most recently popularized in Tim Flannery, The Future Eaters, (Reed, Chatwood, 1994), p. 75.
49. Hill was appointed to CSIR in August 1926, Campbell in 1929 and Key in 1936. The Hill termite collection (some of which arose out of Hill's earlier work in the Northern Territory in 1912-1917) was not retained at CSIR. It was sold to the USA for £100 in 1941. Murray S. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna: the History of the Australian National Insect Collection 1926-1991, (CSIRO Entomology, Canberra, 1997), pp. 5-6, 93-98, 140.
50. CSIR, 'Froggatt Collection of Australian insects', Journal of the CSIR, 1 (1926), p. 318.
51. as quoted by Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, pp. 148-155.
52. The Western Australian Museum was an exception in that it included herbarium specimens until 1959. The British Museum of Natural History in Kensington exhibits fauna not flora, and this has been the pattern of most museum collections established in the colonial era. Concerning colonial botanic gardens see L. Brockway, Science and Colonial Expansion: The Role of the British Royal Botanic Gardens, (Academic Press, New York, 1979).
53. Murray Fagg, 'Australian National Herbarium: centre for plant diversity research', typescript working chronology (2001), kindly provided by the author via e-mail correspondence August 2002. In this chronology, Fagg notes that Calvert originally referred to the collection as 'Herbarium Australiensis' and the Latin was corrected later. The term persisted until 1984, when it was renamed Australian National Herbarium.
54. Herbarium Australiense was used informally in this period. It was revived later as the term used for the combined herbaria of the CSIRO Divisions of Plant Industry and Land Research as documented in Contributions from Herbarium Australiense, 1 (1972).
55. McShane, 'Building a National Museum of Australia: a history', Public History Review, 7 (1998), p. 82;
56. X T. Bennett, Birth of the Museum, (Routledge, London, 1995), pp. 139-140.
57. Irene Crespin, 'Collections of rocks and fossils' in Symposium on Scientific Collections in Canberra, held at the Australian Institute of Anatomy, 20 May 1959, roneoed document, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7), p. 10.
58. The full paper was not published in the 1946 Proceedings, but was referred to in J. W. Evans, 'The Australian Museum', Australian Journal of Science 19(1) (1956), pp. 11-14.
59. Memorandum to A. J. Nicholson from the Taxonomic Group, 21 March 1955, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7).
60. P. B. Carne, 'The problem of type distribution in Australian entomology', Australian Journal of Science 15(4) (1953), p. 109.
61. P. J. Darlington and W. L. Brown, 'Distribution of Australian entomological type specimens', Australian Journal of Science, 17(3) (1954), pp. 105-106.
62. Francis Ratcliffe to Academy of Science, 1 May 1957, (AASA, File 1002, National Parks). See also Libby Robin, 'Nature conservation as a national concern: the role of the Australian Academy of Science', Historical Records of Australian Science, 10 (1994), pp. 1-24.
63. Robert Carrick, 'Vertebrate collections' in Symposium on Scientific Collections in Canberra, held at the Australian Institute of Anatomy, 20 May 1959, roneoed document, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7), p. 5.
64. A. S. George, 'The background to the Flora of Australia', in Flora of Australia, ed. A. S. George (Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1981), pp. 3-14.
65. On Hartley's introductions see Brad Collis, Fields of Discovery: Australia's CSIRO, (Allen and Unwin, Crow's Nest, 2002), p. 209.
66. William Hartley, 'Nancy Tyson Burbidge', Brunonia, 1 (1977), pp. 123-129.
67. Memorandum from W. Hartley to O. H. Frankel, 5 October 1955, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7).
68. Joint Taxonomic Group, 'Document 1 - general case', 12 pp. typescript document, undated, ca September 1955, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7), p. 1.
69. Joint Taxonomic Group, confidential memorandum on 'The establishment of an Australian Natural History Museum', sent to Chiefs of Entomology (Nicholson) and Plant Industry (Frankel), and Officer-in-Charge of Wildlife (Ratcliffe) and Land Research and Regional Survey (C. S. Christian), undated, ca September 1955, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7), 4 pp. (typescript).
70. Joint Taxonomic Group, 'Document 1 - general case', undated, ca September 1955, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7), pp. 1-4. Each of these cases was expanded upon: in the case of malaria, the problem was misidentification of the vector, in the cotton and sheep industries, misidentification of the trouble-maker. In the north Australian example, the survey work of the CSIR Land Research and Regional Survey group was impeded by an absence of previous plant identification.
71. Confidential memorandum on 'The establishment of an Australian Natural History Museum', pp. 1-2; X also Taxonomic Group, 'Document 2: ideal set-up', 3 pp. document, undated ca September 1955, heavily annotated, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7). This document included proposed staffing levels, and a suggested board of trustees including CSIRO (5 changed to 7), ANU (5 changed to 3), Australian Academy of Science (5), Department of Interior (2), Department of Health (2), Department of Treasury (1).
72. Carrick, 'Vertebrate collections' in Symposium on Scientific Collections in Canberra, held at the Australian Institute of Anatomy, 20 May 1959, roneoed document, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7), pp. 2, 4.
73. There were no married women in the Commonwealth Public Service at this time.
74. I am grateful to Murray Fagg for his chronological timeline [see http://www.anbg.gov.au/ anbg/ chronology.html (accessed 9 August 2002)], and for other information on these events, including the date (25 August 1960), when questions in the Commonwealth Senate led to a formal commitment to indigenous plantings.
75. The Royal Society of Canberra had also been active in this enterprise. See Proposal to Develop the Upper Tidbinbilla Valley as a National Native Fauna Reserve, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7), p. 1. The research proposed for Tidbinbilla was directed strongly at the scientific conservation of fauna, rather than taxonomy, and Tidbinbilla was seen as a 'model' for nationwide reserves.
76. George, 'The background to the Flora of Australia', p. 5.
77. The Committee met in Melbourne 22-25 April 1959, and the report was published in 1960. R. T. M. Pescott initially convened the group, and other members were Blake (elected Chair), D. J. Carr, H-j Eichler, L. A. S. Johnson, S. Smith-White and D. E. Symons. See George, 'The background to the Flora of Australia', p. 6.
78. See 'Nancy Tyson Burbridge' on http://www. anbg.gov.au/people/burbidge. nancy.html, (accessed 13 August 2002)
79. and Hartley, 'Nancy Tyson Burbidge', Brunonia, 1 (1977), p. 125.
80. George, 'The background to the Flora of Australia', p. 125.
81. The renaming coincided with its expansion to include the Forest Research Institute's Eucalypt collection and the Atherton rainforest herbarium. In 1972 the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry published a series of monographs entitled Herbarium Australiense. The first issue, published 29 February 1972 records that the Herbarium as 'jointly administered', but from the second issue (4 May 1973) onwards, Plant Industry administered it. This journal ceased in 1976, and was replaced from 1978 by Brunonia, which was expanded to cater for scientific contributions beyond CSIRO.
82. See 'Minutes of Evidence relating to the proposed erection of Botanical Laboratories at Canberra', pp. 2-3 (renumbered pp. 2352-2353), in Australia: Parliamentary Papers Session 1929, 2 (1929), pp. 2341-2399. 'Economic chemistry' was also a term used by the Sydney Technical Museum as early as 1919. X
83. On the Empire Marketing Board and ecology see: Libby Robin, 'Ecology: A science of empire?', in Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies, eds T. Griffiths and L. Robin, (Keele University Press, Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 63-75.
84. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, pp. 86-87.
85. For example there were, by contrast with the era before the 1920s, very few bird-collecting ventures in this period, because of growing concerns about conservation. The efforts by the British Museum to supplement their ornithological collections through a fiveexpedition plan funded by expatriate Australian Harold Hall in the 1960s were very unpopular. See Libby Robin, Flight of the Emu: A Hundred Years of Australian Ornithology 1901-2001, (Melbourne University Press, Carlton, 2001), pp. 200-202.
86. Definitions from Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, p. xvii. (after Cranston et al.)
87. Richard H. Tedford, 'Vertebrate palaeontology in Australia: the American contribution', in Vertebrate Palaeontology in Australasia, eds P. Vickers-Rich et al. (Pioneer, Lilydale, 1991), pp. 46-83. X There were many other expeditions, including those of Ernest Lundelius (University of Texas) and William Turnbull (Field Museum of Natural History). Both A. Stirton and Alden Miller, a palaeo-ornithologist who worked on the same field sites, died suddenly in 1966, but the Stirton 'school' continued to work on the material, from the Lake Eyre Basin, Bullock Creek (a Miocene fauna deposit) and New Guinea. In the 1950s, the South Australian Museum welcomed Stirton's arrival because it wanted information about the location of materials already in the SAM collections, especially the Lake Callabonna finds from the turn of the century. Their exact location had been lost in the five or six intervening decades. (M. A. Smith pers. comm., 22 August 2002).
88. Robin, Flight of the Emu, pp. 192-193.
89. I. F. B. Common, 'Entomological collections', in Symposium on Scientific Collections in Canberra, held at the Australian Institute of Anatomy, 20 May 1959, roneoed document, (RSC Collection, AASA Box 60/7), p. 6.
90. See also Jim Cullen's 'Foreword' in Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, p. v. Cullen's 1997 estimate is more conservative (200,000 insects for Australia) but his estimate of the proportion of multicellular animals that are insects is somewhat higher (80%).
91. H. E. Le Grand, Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988).
92. Ernst Mayr, 'Geography and ecology as faunal determinants', in Proceedings of the 15th IOC 1970, The Hague, ed. K. H. Voous (E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1972), p. 551.
93. Ernst Mayr did not remain a leader in these debates for long, although he was prominent early on. New biochemical techniques and genetic theories brought younger scholars with different ideas about systematics like Joel Cracraft (University of Illinois Medical Center) and Charles Sibley (Peabody Museum) into discussions of southern origins for bird families. See Robin, Flight of the Emu, pp. 235-238.
94. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, p. 182.
95. Correspondence between Mayr and Michael White, who chaired the Museum of Australian Biology Committee of the Academy reveals this. See for example White to Mayr, 18 September 1961, where White is suggesting that Mayr come as 'DOS' (Distinguished Overseas Speaker) to a symposium on Australian biology, (AAS File 1012, 'Fauna and Flora Committee: Museum of Australian Biology'), p. 2.
96. Charles Hedley, 'President's address - section D', Proceedings of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 12 (Brisbane Meeting, 1909) pp. 329-371. The quote from p. 340 was referring particularly to a survey of the marine fauna of Queensland (hence the fisheries bureau), but the principle of institutional responsibility has wider application. X See also Linden Gillbank, 'The life sciences: collections to conservation', in The Commonwealth of Science: ANZAAS and the Scientific Enterprise in Australasia 1888-1988, ed. Roy Macleod (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1988), pp. 99-129.
97. In his Presidential Address to the Royal Zoological Society of NSW, cited in Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, p. 91. Bureau was a popular term in North America at this time, and ecologist Charles Elton at Oxford University (Bureau of Animal Ecology) also used the term.
98. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, p. 92.
99. Letter F. N. Ratcliffe to Australian Academy of Science 1 May 1957, (AASA File 1002, 'National Parks').
100. Letter Nicholson to Oliphant, 7 November 1955, (AAS File 1011, 'Fauna and Flora Committee').
101. Letter Oliphant to Menzies 9 November 1955, and reply Menzies to Oliphant, 27 February 1956, (AAS File 1011, 'Fauna and Flora Committee').
102. Letter Oliphant to Menzies 4 April 1956, (AAS File 1011, 'Fauna and Flora Committee').
103. Evans, 'The Australian Museum', Australian Journal of Science 19(1) (1956), p. 14.
104. Council dismissed the compromise put forward by Evans in December 1958. Letter J. Deeble to Evans 18 December 1958, (AAS File 1002, 'National Parks').
105. On the conservation issues see Robin, 'Nature conservation as a national concern', pp. 1-24.
106. Rogers to F. Fenner, 29 March 1960, (AAS File 1011, 'Fauna and Flora Committee').
107. Evans to Sunderland, 27 February 1958, (AAS File 1011, 'Fauna and Flora Committee'), p. 2.
108. Fenner, discussions with the author, 2 April 2002.
109. Fenner to Rogers, 28 June 1960, (AAS File 1011, 'Fauna and Flora Committee'). D. F. Waterhouse was formally appointed in 1961, but was acting Chief at the time the committee was established. He succeeded Fenner as Secretary (Biological Sciences) for the Academy.
110. As summarised in Fauna and Flora Committee of the Australian Academy of Science, Proposal to Establish a Biological Survey of Australia, (Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, 1968), p. 2.
111. R. P. Stone letter to W. Hartley, 27 May 1959, RSC collection. Stone represented the Museums Association of Australia on the Museums Committee for the Australian National Advisory Committee for UNESCO.
112. F. Fenner (ed.), The First Forty Years, (Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, 1995), p. 129-131. Letter was sent 18 January 1962, reply 21 April 1965.
113. Fauna and Flora Committee of the Australian Academy of Science, Proposal to Establish a Biological Survey of Australia, (Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, 1968), p. 2. It was probably significant that the most vociferous opponent of national collections in Canberra, Evans, had retired in 1966 as Director of the Australian Museum, Sydney.
114. Committee for the Establishment of a Biological Centre in Canberra, A Biological Centre for Canberra, (The Committee, Canberra, 1965), p. 2. The Committee comprised 23 members, 22 of whom were scientists, ten from Australian National University, ten from CSIRO (including the Chiefs of Wildlife Research and Entomology), a lawyer, the Officer-in-Charge of the Institute of Anatomy, and W. K. Whitten from the National Biological Standards Laboratory.
115. A Biological Centre for Canberra, p. 4. In 1965 it could rightly claim to be a 'unique institution, the first of its kind in the world'. In 2002, a similar plan is afoot with a slightly different emphasis through the Nature and Society Forum (see http://www.natsoc. org.au/ under 'Biosphere' - proposal is in pdf format, accessed 29 August 2002); X Also Stephen Boyden, interview with the author 4 April 2002. There are now other successful institutions like this elsewhere including the Desert Museum in Tucson, Arizona, and the 'Biopark' at Alice Springs Desert Park, established in 1997.
116. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, pp. 181, 186.
117. Maxwell F. C. Day, M. J. Whitten and D. Sands, 'Douglas Frew Waterhouse 1916-2000', Historical Records of Australian Science, 13 (2001), pp. 495-519, esp. p. 504.
118. P. Pigott, (Chair), ['Pigott Report'] Australian Committee of Inquiry on Museums and National Collections, Museums in Australia 1975: report of the Committee of Inquiry on Museums and National Collections including the report of the Planning Committee on the Gallery of Aboriginal Australia, (Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1975), Section 12.16, p. 74. Peter Pigott was an executive with a Swiss Medical Corporation. The other members of the group were Geoffrey Blainey, then an academic historian (but who had also worked as a commissioned historian), Wendy Clayton (a photographer who represented the general community), John Mulvaney (Australian National University archaeologist and prehistorian), Frank Talbot (zoologist and Director of the Australian Museum), F. J. Waters (Secretary of the Postal Union), Doug Waterhouse (entomologist and Chief CSIRO Division of Entomology, with responsibility for the Australian National Insect Collection) and R. W. (Bill) Boswell, a physicist who had worked at the Woomera Rocket Range before transferring to the Department of Science. Boswell died about a month before the report was presented, but according to John Mulvaney, was very influential in the Inquiry. E. E. Payne, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health (which still had statutory responsibility for the MacKenzie collection) drafted the report.
119. The Academy, Canberra, October 1968, mimeo 19
120. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, p. 190. Also http://www.ea.gov.au/ biodiversity/abrs/ about/history.html, accessed 30 August 2002.
121. Fenner, pers. comm. 2 April 2002. By this time the Biological Centre proposal was being proposed, but although Fenner was a member of the committee (and is indeed a member of the committee proposing the new version of this proposal in 2002), this proposal was not put forward under the Academy's auspices.
122. In April 1963 a draft report 'Prevention of unrestricted export of Australian insects' was circulated to 42 institutions for comment. Twenty out of the 25 responses favoured informal arrangements over legislation. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, pp. 295-318 details the whole saga of Regulation 13A. I have drawn on this and on several archival files simply labelled '13A' from Waterhouse's own papers (held at CSIRO Entomology). I am grateful to Jim Cullen and Max Day for facilitating my access to these records.
123. In a letter to D. F. Waterhouse 20 April 1965, cited in Waterhouse, 'History of moves to secure the return to Australia of Holotypes stemming from insect material sent overseas', in Supplement to the Australian Entomological Society News Bulletin, 10 (1974), pp. 3-5.
124. See Robin, Flight of the Emu, pp. 200-202. The type specimen for the 'Hall's Babbler' Pomatostomus halli, the only new bird to science discovered by the expeditions between 1964 and 1968, was deposited in the Queensland Museum in keeping with this principle. New subspecies were also treated this way. Some 4709 skins, 786 skeletons, 910 fluid specimens and 2700 tongues went to the British Museum collection. Insects, however, were more problematic than birds because much less was known about them, so new species might continue to be identified in the collections in years to come.
125. Editorial, 'Insect export restriction enquiry', in Supplement to the Australian Entomological Society News Bulletin, 10 (1974), pp. 1-2. It was noted that the State Museum Directors would also eventually be so authorized 'when delays occasioned by protocol have been overcome'.
126. G. B. Monteith, 'A case against legislative control of insect export' in Supplement to the Australian Entomological Society News Bulletin 10 (1974), pp. 5-8.
127. J. W. Evans, 'A liberal democracy?', Search 10, (1979), pp. 260-262, quotes from p. 260.
128. Day, Whitten and Sands, 'Douglas Frew Waterhouse 1916-2000', p. 504.
129. Pigott Report, Section 1.2, p. 1.
130. Fellowship of the First Fleeters, Australia Day Celebrations: Suggested Activities, (Sydney, ca 1968), pamphlet NLP 394.26994 F322, 16 pp., (National Library of Australia, section K16), p. 14 refers to built historical heritage. X On the shift from the spiritual to the material, see G. Davison, 'The meanings of 'heritage', in A Heritage Handbook, eds G. Davison and C. McConville (Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1991) pp. 1-13.
131. On the shift to history as heritage see also Griffiths, Hunters and Collectors, pp. 195-218.
132. Pigott Report, Section 7, pp. 33-37. The Australian Heritage Commission was established in 1975. The Report of the National Estate was published in 1974.
133. The AIAS is now the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). It is a separate institution but its new building is on the same site as the National Museum of Australia, and it was built at the same time as part of a joint arrangement.
134. Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975, Section 4(1).
135. Mulvaney commented on the influence and timing of the first conference on the Pigott enquiry (interview 2 April 2002). The Project Coordination Committee met four times in 1975 and 1976 and finally reported back to the Australian Heritage Commission in 1978. Australia was at the vanguard of international thinking in historical archaeology. For example, the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Safeguarding and Contemporary Role of Historic Areas, (UNESCO, Paris, 1976), was adopted by the General Conference at its nineteenth session, (Nairobi, 26 November 1976). The full Report of the Project Coordination Committee on Historical Archaeology was published internally by ANU in February 1978. It lists thirteen committee members, including Mulvaney himself, and three other university archaeologists, representatives of two State museums and two National Parks services, three architectural historians, and archivist and an architectural photographer.
136. 'The Lingiari story' on http://www.lingiari. startyourweb.com/pages/101. html, accessed 29 August 2002.
137. The repatriation of human remains is one of the inherited responsibilities of the new National Museum of Australia, and this institution is the only place in Australia that can receive repatriated human remains from international museums and other institutions.
138. Museums visited are listed in Appendix II f the Pigott Report, pp. 115-118. International museums selected were in Canada, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain, UK and USA. National and maritime museums were of particular interest, as these were among the major concerns of the inquiry.
139. Pigott Report, Section 11.4, p. 62.
140. Pigott Report, Section 2.9, p. 3; Mulvaney (interview with the author, 2 April 2002).
141. Letter Mulvaney to the author 5 September 2002.
142. This conservation course is threatened with closure because of financial constraints at the University of Canberra in 2002.
143. Pigott Report, Section 8.3, p. 38. The Australia Post Collections are now part of the National Historical Collection at the National Museum of Australia.
144. Pigott Report, Section 2.6, p. 3 and Section 5, pp. 19-28.
145. Pigott Report, the five sections 8.30-8.34 (pp. 45-46) present the majority view, while the six sections 8.35-8.40 (pp. 46-48) present the minority view. A separate report on a Gallery of Aboriginal Australia, from its Planning Committee (chaired by Mulvaney) recommended Aboriginal art, ethnographic material and other cultural artefacts be established as a separate entity in consultation with Aboriginal communities, the Aboriginal Arts Board and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. This report was published separately, and also within the Pigott Inquiry report.
146. Pigott Report, Section 8.40, p. 48.
147. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, p. 190.
148. Interview with John Mulvaney, 2 April 2002.
149. Upton, A Rich and Diverse Fauna, pp. 192-193.
150. National Museum of Australia Act 1980, Section 6 1(a).
151. National Museum of Australia Act 1980, Section 6 1(c).
152. Pigott Report, Section 12.6, pp. 70-71.
153. Since 1966, the CSIRO Division of Wildlife Research has maintained its Wildlife Collection in a dedicated space. It began formally with 8800 bird and 8500 mammal specimens. See Richard Schodde, 'The Australian National Wildlife Collection', in [George Main] Of Beauty Rich and Rare: Fifty Years of CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology, (CSIRO Wildlife & Ecology, 1999), pp. 29-31. In 1980, it also managed the Australian Bird Banding Scheme, but divested itself of this in 1984. Entomology had responsibility for the Australian National Insect Collection, and Plant Industry still maintained the Herbarium Australiense, later the Australian National Herbarium.
154. Even the National Maritime Museum, one of the 'other national museums' proposed in Section 13 of the Pigott report was built sooner, because of the political impetus of the remarkable Australia II win in the America's Cup of 1983. A purpose-built building was constructed in Darling Harbour, Sydney, but the Australia II returned to Perth, at the request of Western Australian interests.
155. The Fauna and Flora Committee of the Australian Academy of Science and The Australian Institute of Biology Inc. sponsored the conference (11-12 November 1991) and the publication in a special issue of The Australian Biologist, 5 (1992).
156. Fauna and Flora Committee, Proposal to Establish a Biological Survey of Australia, (Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, 1968), p. 1.
157. This phrase was the title of a keynote address by P. H. Raven from the Missouri Botanical Garden, St Louis, USA, published in Australian Biologist, pp. 9-13. The Minister's speech is in the same volume, pp. 4-7.
158. Anon., 'Symposium recommendations', Australian Biologist, p. 8.
159. Windschuttle, 'How not to run a museum, p. 17.
160. See Lord May, 'Good science must include the people', The Age 25 September 2001. Also at http://www.theage.com.au/news/ state/2001/09/25/ FFXXJ4O5ZRC.html (accessed 22 November 2002).
161. Linda Young, 'The National Museum of Australia', Australian Historical Studies, 117 (2001), pp. 344-348, quote on p. 345.
162. Pigott Report, Section 12.15, p. 73.