{"id":3836,"date":"2013-02-14T11:21:30","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T00:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stumblingpast.wordpress.com\/?p=3836"},"modified":"2022-08-04T00:26:03","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T00:26:03","slug":"twenty-five-stories-from-australias-first-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingpast.com\/2013\/02\/14\/twenty-five-stories-from-australias-first-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"Twenty Five: Stories from Australia’s First Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fountain<\/a>
Fountain at NSW Parliament House created by Robert Woodward. The exhibition reviewed in this post surrounds this stunning feature.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Twenty five stories from Australia\u2019s first parliament \u2013 intriguing!\u00a0 During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries political debate in Australia was vigorous and at times innovative.\u00a0 There are a wealth of great stories lurking in the pages of Hansard and the tightly packed columns of colonial newspapers.\u00a0 From the vantage point of today these stories are fascinating but of course at the time these were serious matters.\u00a0 With the added allure of seeing items never previously displayed in public I was eager to see the new exhibition at New South Wales Parliament House.<\/p>\n

The exhibition is designed to appeal to many people.\u00a0 It includes the story of a member of parliament who decided that it would be a good idea to settle a dispute with famed Surveyor-General, Thomas Mitchell, by shooting it out in a duel.\u00a0 The stories of the royal visitations to New South Wales parliament receive attention as do European explorers such as La Perouse who helped to chart the Australian coast and William Wentworth, famed for being one of the first Europeans to cross the Blue Mountains.\u00a0 The Reconciliation Wall, a permanent space dedicated to the permanent display of artwork of Aboriginal people in 1998, is one of the stories in the exhibition.\u00a0 One of the icons of Sydney, the Harbour Bridge is also featured.<\/p>\n

Each person who visits the exhibition will relate to it in a different way.\u00a0 The following is a sample of items that caught my eye.<\/p>\n

The colony’s Muster Book from 1800 has never been seen before on public display.\u00a0 This was the first \u2018census\u2019 of the European population in the colony.\u00a0 The book records the occupations of each person as well as their land holdings and livestock they owned.\u00a0 My immediate thought was, \u2018has it been digitised?\u2019 It would be a useful resource for people researching their family history.\u00a0 It does not seem to be available on the internet but the information contained in it is available in Musters and Lists, New South Wales and Norfolk Island, 1800-1802<\/em><\/a>, (Sydney: ABGR with Australian Society of Genealogists, 1988).<\/p>\n

\"NSW<\/a>
The right to vote in NSW 1901. The holder of this certificate was “… qualified in respect of Manhood and of Residence in such District” to vote.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The issues surrounding the right to vote were an obvious inclusion in the exhibition.\u00a0 On display were certificates issued to those men who had the right to vote in 1894 and 1901.\u00a0 Men were required to live in the electoral district for one month, a requirement that itinerant workers found difficult to meet.\u00a0 Aside from residency the other requirement was an important one.\u00a0 These certificates attested to the \u2018Manhood\u2019 of the holder.\u00a0 Female suffrage in New South Wales did not occur until 1902<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"View<\/a>
‘The Bear Pit’ – the lower house of NSW Parliament viewed from the Speaker’s chair. This is where Millicent Preston Stanley delivered her first speech to parliament in 1925.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Millicent Preston Stanley<\/a> \u2013 that is a name to remember.\u00a0 She was the first woman to be elected to the parliament of New South Wales, winning a lower house seat in 1925.\u00a0 Reporting on her maiden speech The Sydney Morning Herald<\/i><\/a> commented that she:<\/p>\n

…made one of the most rousing and most arresting speeches in the history of the New South Wales Legislature.\u00a0 It was a speech charged with the personal magnetism of a woman who, long before she entered Parliament, had won a distinctive place in the community as a public speaker.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Millicent Preston Stanley spoke for nearly an hour and a half effectively dealing with the interjections from the other side according to newspaper accounts.\u00a0 You can read her speech here <\/a>(I suspect that this is not her entire speech, for that you should check Hansard).\u00a0 Among the issues she addressed were her concern at high rates of maternal and child mortality, care for the mentally ill, and her opposition to the 44 hour week.<\/p>\n

It is tempting to put pioneers such as Millicent Preston Stanley on a pedestal and laud them for their noteworthy achievements while subconsciously disallowing the possibility that they had flaws.\u00a0 I was reminded of this when I read her maiden speech and felt uncomfortable about her comments regarding the mentally ill.\u00a0 This was the era of eugenics<\/a> after all.<\/p>\n

I have spent many hours reading nineteenth and early twentieth century Hansards of various Australian parliaments so I appreciated the attention given to this in the exhibition.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
The Palantype machine made in 1943 on display.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On display was a Hansard reporter\u2019s notebook written in shorthand and an unusual keyboard in a black box called a Palantype <\/a>from 1943.\u00a0 Palantype?\u00a0 I had never heard of it and wanted to know more.\u00a0 Back at home I googled it and found that it is a machine designed for recording speech.\u00a0 It is important for a Hansard reporter to type as quickly as a speaker is talking.\u00a0 A QWERTY keyboard is too slow even for the fastest typist.\u00a0 The Palantype uses a completely different keyboard layout and allows several keys to be pressed at once to form words.\u00a0 Attention is given to its ergonomic design so that operators can sustain reporting for long periods of time.\u00a0 It has been found useful for helping deaf people to listen to speech.<\/p>\n

The exhibition notes explained that voice recognition software is now used to record what is said in parliament.\u00a0 The results are checked carefully because voice recognition software sometimes makes mistakes.\u00a0 Some historic parliamentary records are available online, click here to see what is available.<\/p>\n

Exhibitions are about learning something new.\u00a0 I had not previously heard of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association<\/a>.\u00a0 Through this organization the New South Wales Parliament is \u2018twinned\u2019 to the National Parliament of the Solomon Islands and the House of Representatives for the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.\u00a0 This organisation promotes \u2018good parliamentary practice\u2019 and \u2018understanding of democratic governance\u2019.<\/p>\n

Federation naturally made its appearance in the exhibition.\u00a0 There was the expected mention of Henry Parkes and his speech at Tenterfield.\u00a0 I found the book of photos of the celebrations in Sydney surrounding Federation interesting.\u00a0 On the opened page was a photo of a parade.\u00a0 A large garland extended from the first floor of a building with \u201cVictoria the good\u201d written in the middle.\u00a0 No, the residents of New South Wales were not praising those who lived in the state of Victoria in a fit of federation fever.\u00a0 The reference was to the ruling monarch at the time \u2013 Queen Victoria.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t envy curators of exhibitions such as this.\u00a0 How do you choose which aspects of the last two hundred odd years of parliamentary history to display?\u00a0 This exhibition is designed for the general public and the general public holds a vast array of opinions and attitudes.\u00a0 The exhibition seeks to inform and gently educate, not to stir debate.\u00a0 It is a celebration of New South Wales parliamentary history.<\/p>\n

Overall I enjoyed the exhibition.\u00a0 I would have appreciated the use of QR codes<\/a> to supplement the limited descriptions given to some items, such as the Palantype machine.\u00a0 This would enable the visitor to use a QR reader on their smart phone in order to access additional commentary on items.<\/p>\n

This exhibition draws on the collection of historic items held in the Parliamentary archives.\u00a0 These archives are not generally open to the public.\u00a0 Andrew Taylor reported in The Sydney Morning Herald<\/i><\/a> that these holdings include items that cannot be displayed because they were \u201cgiven to Parliament under privilege\u201d.\u00a0 I have to confess this makes me curious.\u00a0 What else is in these archives?<\/p>\n

I encourage you to visit this exhibition.\u00a0 In this post I have discussed only some of the stories that are covered.\u00a0 In fact there were two items in the exhibition that interested me so much I have not mentioned them here for want of space.\u00a0 Watch out for a post about petitions coming soon!<\/p>\n

The exhibition, Twenty Five: Stories from Australia\u2019s First Parliament<\/a>, spans two centuries of New South Wales parliamentary history and is currently showing at the Parliament of New South Wales in Macquarie St, Sydney.\u00a0 Entry is free.\u00a0 The last day of the exhibition is 1st<\/sup> March.<\/p>\n

Some Websites that Caught My Eye<\/h2>\n

While researching this post I found a couple of websites\/pages that I found interesting:<\/p>\n