for Movable
Heritage
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Above: Pastoral technology can tell us about working conditions in country NSW in the early 20th century. Photograph courtesy of Young Historical Society
Left: A barbershop was a male environment and sometimes included a separate room where women's hair was trimmed out of male view and away from men's talk and magazines. |
People have been collecting heritage objects and treasured items privately
and in museums for generations. These things that we value and want to keep
for future generations are known as movable heritage, a term that is
rapidly gaining currency. Heritage NSW looks at how the NSW Heritage
Council is promoting and caring for this important part of our heritage.
Movable heritage includes any natural or manufactured object of heritage
significance, from small objects such as domestic items and ephemera to
large objects such as steam engines and industrial machinery. Items of
movable heritage are significant in their own right, or may exist as an
integral part of a heritage place.
With a well-documented history and careful interpretation, an item can help
to tell stories of the culture and history of people and communities. At
the same time, the item will have greater significance if it remains in the
place where it was originally kept - in a heritage building or site, a
place or region of use, origin or manufacture or within a particular
community. By keeping an item in its original home, the historical
connections which both the place and item possess are kept alive.
To implement the NSW Government's Heritage Policy which addresses the
appropriate role of the Heritage Council in relation to movable items, the
NSW Heritage Council, with additional funding from the Ministry of the
Arts, has employed John Petersen as a Movable Heritage Project Officer for
12 months. John will develop and promote a NSW Heritage Council movable
heritage policy to outline the appropriate Heritage Council responsibility
for movable heritage, including what items could be listed on the State
Heritage Register
and how community outreach could be used to care for significant items.
John will also prepare guidelines on how to care for movable heritage as an
addition to the NSW Heritage Manual. Agencies such as the National Trust,
Australia ICOMOS, Museums Australia, the Powerhouse Museum and the
Institution of Engineers, Australia, which have a wealth of movable
heritage knowledge and experience, have been invited to join a reference
group which will give technical advice to the Heritage Office for the
duration of the project.
This year the Heritage Council will focus on two very different kinds of
heritage collections: shops and pastoral technology. Shops are interesting,
not just for their architecture and interior design but also for their
fittings. These include counters, furniture, tools of trade, change
machines, scales, merchandise and signs. Considered as a whole, these
components tell us stories about community life and retailing.
Shop fittings and their layout show us the impact of changing technologies
on working life and customers. In a self service era, they may allow us to
revisit the days of full counter service and examine how men and women were
treated differently. An old-fashioned general store sometimes had separate
entrances and clothes fitting rooms for women and men. Different types of
merchandise were marketed for men and women, reflecting attitudes to the
family centred roles of homemaker and the recreational pursuits and
perceived social standing of the breadwinner.
Pastoral technology includes tractors, steam engines, pumps and irrigation
equipment, ploughs, harvesters and farm implements. These collections tell
us about working life and changing technologies, patterns of land use and
how these impacted on the rural workforce. They can inform us about farm
life and the use of manual labour, the purchase of the latest new
technology in prosperous times or 'making do' in times of hardship.
Like other types of heritage, movable heritage needs to be assessed for
significance before we make decisions about how best to care for it. Its
condition may inform us about its history of manufacture, ownership, use
and maintenance. Restoring or making an item operational may not be
appropriate. Away from its context and without adequate documentation and
interpretation, a complete understanding and experience of movable heritage
and its stories may be lost.
