Tag Archives: Mitcham Heritage Research Centre

Hi Everyone,

My directed study is coming along well, but I still have a lot of work to do revising my report and creating my site maps. I consider myself fortunate this semester in that my two research projects complement each other geographically, historically and methodologically; I have learnt a great deal more about the Mitcham area than what I thought at the beginning of the semester.

For this post, I thought that I might share with you some information regarding wages and working conditions for labourers in the mid-nineteenth century, and how this information compliments one of my research topics.

Christine Bender and Susan Piddock state in their chapter of ‘Valleys of Stone’ that in 1851, there were approximately 1,500 unemployed men living in Adelaide. This spell of unemployment was broken with the discovery of gold in Victoria, as men were drawn to the Victorian goldfields with the hopes of striking it rich. This absence of labour created a worker shortage, and as a result, wages soared (2006: 35). By 1853 labourers were earning 9 shillings a day which was twice as much as what they earnt in 1851 (2006: 36).

Samuel Saunders, the original owner of the sections of land that make up Randell Park today, arrived in South Australia in 1850. By 1854, he was a partner in a quarrying operation , he had purchased a section of land and he had built his house on that piece of land. He eventually ended up running his own business using the stone that he quarried from his own land, as well as constructing bridges that are still standing today, one of which is heritage listed. It appears that Saunders’ story is a classic European settler story, in that he achieved all of this from years of hard work and sacrifice.

However, when placed in the historical context outlined above, his story can be viewed through a new perspective. I am not saying that Saunders coasted through life on a lucky break, but the point that I am trying to make is that when two pieces of information complement one another, it allows us to view those pieces of information from a different perspective and gives the story so much more texture. I have found this to be one of the best aspects of historical and archival research.

Cheers.

Brochures are one of the main means by which the MHRC promotes Mitcham’s heritage, and they currently have over 40 available from the centre and online. These brochures cover many aspects of the area’s history – from suburbs and wards, prominent people and buildings, to cemeteries and reserves within Mitcham – and are usually presented as chronologies or timelines.

My first individual project at the Centre was to create two new brochures suitable for the public – one for the photographic collection and the other for a tiled table top tour. Already there existed four brochures regarding the photographs, one for each of the four major donors to the collection, but Maggy’s brief was to make an overarching brochure which would encompass the collection as a whole. There were no existing brochures regarding the tiled tables, and Maggy’s brief was that I make a ‘tour’ brochure that people could use to visit the 6 tables.

I used the local history collection to research my two topics, to gather information and images. I had decided early on that I didn’t want my brochures to be just another two chronologies to add to the collection – I wanted them to be interesting, original and useful. I wanted to make them more engaging to the public with a fresh layout, easy to understand, relevant and informative text, associated photographs, a map for the tour and an order form for the photos. I was also aware, particularly with the photographic collection, of not repeating information that could already be found in other brochures.

After several edits, the brochures were debuted to the public at the Princes Rd centre opening in November 2009, and are now available from the Centre and online. A new table top is being unveiled for History Week 2010 (see Mitcham website for details) and my table top tour brochure will be peddled at that event to encourage people to visit the other sites around Mitcham.

for your own copy, click on the links below
http://www.mitchamcouncil.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Photographic_Collection.pdf
http://www.mitchamcouncil.sa.gov.au/webdata/resources/files/Tiled_Tabletop_Tour.pdf