STANTHORPE Heritage Museum was awarded a $5300 federal Community Heritage Grant to fund a significance assessment, announced at the National Library of Australia in Canberra on 27 October 2016.
This recently completed significance assessment of part of the Stanthorpe museum collection revealed there are two collections of national and state significance, as well as regional interest.
They are the Jean Harslett Collection consisting of many and varied items and family histories, and the Make Do collection of hand-made equipment for farming, kitchenalia, and gardening tools.
“Many of our hand-made items would have been headed for the dump, but we have saved them for future generations,” president Mervyn McKenny said.
He considers Jean’s collection of slides of Granite Belt nature unique and insightful – plants and blossoms, birds, bugs, and animals.
Sandra McEwan is scanning thousands of these slides to ensure future generations can enjoy Jean’s appreciation of the Granite Belt. Her extensive ‘rock collection’ is also a wonderful display for the visitors.
Curator Lorene Long knows how much detail Jean included in her family histories, including copies of photographs from earlier generations.
“When I was in Canberra last, the National Library staff were envious of our collection of family histories – all thanks to Jean,” she said.
“I am proud that this report acknowledges the value of the work done by all of our volunteers in preserving and presenting our special displays – I knew our work was important.”
The Italian Collection has items of state and regional significance and was specially recognised, with Stanthorpe’s Heritage Museum one of very few community museums in Australia to celebrate the nation’s Italian heritage, according to the report.
The museum building dedicated to the apple industry is extensive, and should be viewed in the context of exploratory innovation and demonstrates Stanthorpe’s proactive efforts, notable for the time, to stimulate and develop foreign trade and export markets, evidenced as early as 1931.
Also in that year, Stanthorpe apples won the worldwide Orient Cup in London for the second year in succession, and also second prize. The best four cases of Granny Smiths were judged in Sydney and again in London after being shipped by the Orient Shipping Company.
The records of this and other correspondence clearly has historic and socio-cultural importance and state-level and regional significance and further, some measure of national-level historic significance with a distinct path of provenance.
Both Mervyn and Lorene say that although this project involved hundreds of hours of preparation, the recognition of the historically important items, and there are many, means that the collections are considered of major importance to the history of Australia.
The outcome, national and state significance, will ensure major grants are much more likely to be available to the Stanthorpe Heritage Museum in the future.
