Tag Archives: Directed Study

It’s an ace!

Posted on April 23, 2013 by | 1 Comment

As part of my Directed Study in archaeology I have been researching information about the toys that were found under the floor boards in the Oatlands Gaol, Tasmania.

So far I have had little success in gaining information about the toys, but this week I have had some success. In my collection I have an ace of spades printed by the United States Playing Card Co. It is a Bicycle playing card, number 808. The ace of spades depicts the statue of freedom, which in 1865 was placed on top of the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

The 808 series of playing cards was printed in three colours—red, green and blue—and was introduced in 1885. The ace of spades in my collection is a racer number 1 series, which was introduced in 1895 and ran until 1906.

As mentioned in my earlier post, I am trying to match the date of the toys to families who lived in the  Gaolers’ Residence. From 1895 to 1906 there were six families living in the gaol, and the date range of the card spans the majority of this occupation. Three of the families had children, however playing cards were used more by adults than by children.

I have contacted the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and am hoping that they will be able to provide me with more information about the other toys in my collection. ImageImage

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Student Posts

Tagged , , , ,

“Know Your Enemy”

Posted on April 5, 2013 by | Comments Off

During World War Two, in the Pacific Theatre, the Japanese forces had occupied many of the Pacific Islands. The Japanese fortified these islands in a variety of ways to defend them from the attacking American Forces, one of which was to use and/or construct caves for highly strategic military purposes and as protective shelters for both the Japanese forces, and the civilian population of these islands.

For my directed study, I’ve been tasked with identifying the use of the caves (i.e.fortified positions, machine gun emplacements, storage, etc.) on the island of Saipan, in the Northern Mariana Islands, by collating historical and archival data to extract as many locations for cave sites on the island as possible.

Before researching into Saipan’s caves, I’ve decided to look at “Know Your Enemy!”, a declassified US Military report on the Japanese Military Caves on Peleliu. This report complies the information gained after the extensive study and analysis of the cave system found on Peleliu, Palau.

Know your enemy

Peleliu was the site of Operation Stalemate II, which had occurred after the Americans gained control of Saipan, Guam and Tinian, and before the Volcano and Ryūkyū Islands campaign (Iwo Jima and Okinawa). As such, some of the techniques to defend the island came from what had been learnt when previous islands were taken. This potentially means that how the Japanese used the caves on Peleliu would be similar to, or an improvement on how the caves were used on Saipan.

The following are some extracts from the report that I believe could help me  for the Saipan research:

1

Differences between the Army and Navy:

2

3

In relation to I, L, and T shaped caves:

4

And, something to chill the spine:

5

Comments Off

Posted in Student Posts

Tagged , , , , ,

Beyond the high society

Posted on November 10, 2012 by | Comments Off

Directed Study Blog Post 3

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been searching archival records for information about Oaklands Estate and the families who lived there. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, in the 1940s part of the estate was acquired by the government to build the Warradale Army Barracks. During my search for documents I learnt that this military presence went back much further—it dated back as far as 1914 when the then owner of the property Thomas Currie Taite leased a portion of his property to the Army for use as a camp ground for the soldiers. Reading about this military presence got me thinking about how war affected the people of society who had owned Oaklands Estate.  I wondered if any of them had gone on to become soldiers or been drafted into the war effort. Following this thought I began a search for connections between the estate and the World Wars and I came across an article which caught me by surprise: this article told the story of a man named Tom Derrick.

Tom was born at Oaklands Estate on the 20th of March 1914, his parents worked in the service of the Taite family; he was in fact named after Thomas Taite, the ‘squire’ of Oaklands Estate. He wasn’t the child of the fortunate family who owned the plentiful estate but he spent his toddling years at the property, and reportedly spent his childhood watching the soldiers training at the military campgrounds adjoining the property. His family left the estate and, as Tom grew up, he tried his hand at a number of professions:  he worked as a carpenter, and a baker’s assistant, during the Depression his father helped him to build a bicycle from spare parts and he rode from Port Adelaide to Berri to seek work on the fruit blocks. He reportedly never had any interest in military matters, had no desire to join the defence forces, to be a soldier.

In 1940, with the onset of the Second World War, Tom signed up to the second 46th battalion and joined the Australians who shipped off to war. I don’t know why he decided to go to war; maybe he wanted to protect his family back home, perhaps he was simply answering the call to serve his country, or maybe he remembered those days in his youth of watching the soldiers train at Oaklands.

In June of 1945 Tom Derrick was declared a casualty of war. He was killed at the head of the charge to protect his fellow soldiers.

This story really spoke to me: here was a man who had grown up in the splendour of the estate at Oaklands but who had shared none of its riches. Just a typical Aussie who struggled through life but managed to find happiness. A man who gave his life in the service of his country. It’s so rare to find a story about an average Australian associated with a site like Oaklands, documented history is usually about the rich or the famous, so to find this story about a working family’s son was really something special.

References

Army News, Darwin NT, 6 June 1945: Page 4

Comments Off

Posted in Student Posts

Tagged , , ,

The trouble with names…

Posted on November 8, 2012 by | Comments Off

Directed Study Blog Post 2

As part of my directed study I have been talking to David Jarman, a local historian who has been gathering oral histories and stories about Oaklands House for a number of years. One of these stories struck me as particularly interesting so I thought I would take an opportunity to share it here:

From their home in England the Kearne family purchased the site for Oaklands Estate sight unseen.  They had been shown its general location on a map and were aware that the Sturt River flowed through the property.

Upon setting out from England they ordered all the materials necessary to build the homestead, outbuildings, and other aspects of the property; they purchased a ship or boat to take their materials to the site of the estate, and they hired a crew to sail the ship and later to assist as labourers and workers on the property.

They arrived in Australian prepared to sail their new ship up the Sturt River to the site of their new estate, unfortunately the agent who sold them the land had neglected to tell them that the Sturt River is little more than a seasonal creek and certainly not capable of accommodating a barge filled with building materials.

Other means of transporting the materials overland were arranged eventually and the estate was constructed by 1844. Interestingly enough, though, many members of the ship’s crew did go on to work on the property; even parts of the ship itself contributed to the homestead’s construction. Until its demolition in 1967 the ship’s bell hung over the back door of the estate.

Comments Off

Posted in Student Posts

Tagged , , , ,

Oaklands Estate: An Overview

Posted on November 7, 2012 by | Comments Off

Directed Study Blog Post 1

This semester I have been working on a Directed Study in conjunction with the Marion Council to assess the archaeological potential of the former site of Oaklands Estate. This estate was one of the original grand homesteads of South Australia located off Oaklands Road. The estate was built in 1844 by Samuel Kearne and has since been owned by both the Crozier and Pethick families.

The once vast estate was unfortunately subject to two compulsory purchase orders by the State Government: the first in the early 1940s acquired a large portion of the estates land for the construction of the Warradale Army Base, and the second in the 1950s acquired the rest of the property for the purposes of building a new hospital in the South. This planned hospital (Flinders Hospital) was instead relocated to its current Bedford Park location, and the Oaklands Estate site was destroyed to make way for a wetland development instead.

With the exception of a small plot of grapevines, none of the original property is left visible today; it is likely that some still exists as archaeological deposits. The house itself is most likely currently buried under a bitumen car-park which could mean that there is a well preserved archaeological deposit there.

Comments Off

Posted in Student Posts

Tagged , ,