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Christmas cards

23 December 2009 by Kerrie Leech. No comments
Collection,Collection Highlights,From the collection, Private Records

At Christmas time most people take the opportunity to stop and think about family and friends and pass on their greetings and well wishes by means of the traditional Christmas card.  The Memorial holds an interesting collection of Christmas cards – different types, various shapes and sizes, and from all conflicts.  One of our earlier and more unusual Christmas cards can be seen below. read on

Memorial’s digitisation project shortlisted for cultural award

18 December 2009 by Robyn Van Dyk. No comments
Collection

The Australian War Memorial’s Bean diaries digitisation project was short listed for the Manning Clark House National Cultural Awards – 2009. The Award recognises outstanding contributions to the quality of Australian cultural life in 2009.

The digitisation of these fragile bound diaries represented a significant achievement for the Memorial. Personal records are not always presented in a logical or chronological order. The challenge for the Memorial’s Research Centre was to digitise all of Charles Bean’s 286 volumes of diaries, notebooks and folders without damaging them and to make the digital images of the records accessible and usable in the online environment without interfering with the integrity of the original documents.

Our intention of displaying this valuable collection online means that the original records are now preserved and this  historically significant and unique collection is available to all researchers across Australia and the world.

The records can be viewed on the Memorial’s website here: http://www.awm.gov.au/collection/war_diaries/cew_bean/

Conservation Cleaning of a Wedding Dress

14 December 2009 by Jessie Firth. 4 Comments
Collection,Conservation,From the collection,Of love and war, Conservation, Dry-cleaning, Exhibition, From the collection, Of Love and War, Textile, wedding dress

Emma Jones previously mentioned in 60 year old sweat on a wedding dress – a conservation challenge the preparation of Miss Platt-Hepworth’s wedding dress for the exhibition Of Love and War. The decision was made by the curator Rebecca Britt to keep the staining as evidence of use. While the staining is important to keep, the fabric was not as lustrous as it once was. The dress has a pattern of pretty daises made from cream silk woven with numerous silver threads. A lot of the silver plating on the metal threads had tarnished and been damaged; this has exposed the copper substrate of the thread and gives the dress a more golden appearance than it originally had.

Due to the presence of the metal threads, I discounted the use of many of the cleaning methods that a textile conservator might normally use such as washing. As any treatment with water could damage the silk or cause further corrosion of the metal I decided to use a solvent to ‘dry-clean’ the dress. Petroleum spirits was my chosen solvent as it is less toxic than a lot of the other dry-cleaning solvents. My tests also indicated that the lustre and handle of the silk would be improved, while leaving the historical staining intact.

Petroleum Sprits is an unpleasant chemical to use, so to ensure our safety we used gloves and respirators. The bath was set up in a large fume extractor in the Large Technology Conservation Workshop, which is usually used to paint tanks!

When historical textiles are being treated it is important to be very gentle so as not to damage the fabric. So for this wedding dress a large bath was used to prevent creases and folds.  During ‘dry-cleaning’ the dress was very gently sponged by hand to move the solvent through the fabric without moving the fabric too much. Once rinsed with more of the solvent, the dress was lifted out of the bath on a nylon netting supporting sling and placed on a hammock (made of more netting) to dry.

The following photographs show Sarah Clayton, Senior Textile Conservator, and myself, ‘dry-cleaning’ Miss Platt-Hepworth’s wedding dress in Petroleum Spirits and the dress drying.

Sarah Clayton and Jessie Firth ‘dry-cleaning’ Miss Platt-Hepworth’s wedding dress

Miss Platt-Hepworth’s wedding dress drying after 'dry-cleaning'

This was a successful treatment; the fabric is fresher and more lustrous after cleaning, whilst the historical stains remain intact. It is now very important that we use gloves when handling this dress, to prevent the natural oils and acids from our skin tarnishing the silver threads again.

“Dorothy” the Kitbag

11 December 2009 by Bridie Kirkpatrick. 3 Comments
Collection,Conservation,Exhibitions,Of love and war, Conservation, Dorothy Lamour, Exhibition, kitbag, Of Love and War, pin-up, Sgn John Conrad Lynam, Textile

Isn’t it funny how things come about? While working on the textiles component for the exhibition Of Love and War a painted kitbag came to me for treatment. The lovely pin-up painted on the bag looked an awful lot like Dorothy Lamour, a beautiful actress known as the “Sarong Girl” in the 1940’s.  As the exhibition will be travelling I had to chuckle that Dorothy Lamour made a string of Bing Crosby/ Bob Hope “On the Road” films. The kitbag belonged to Signaller John Conrad Lynam, a timber cutter from Brisbane. Signaller John appears to have had an artistic hand and a taste for beautiful women.  The kitbag was worn and many years of use and storage had caused abrasions and losses. The paint was also flaking from the canvas, leaving the surface very unstable. The conservation challenge was to find a binding agent to stabilise the paint surface that was strong but flexible and would not discolour the paint or underlying canvas. After much testing a traditional conservation material “Isinglass” was chosen. Isinglass is made from the bladder of the Sturgeon fish and has the consistency of wall paper glue. It was applied sparingly with a small paint brush in conjunction with a wicking solvent.

Applying solvent to "Dorothy" the Kitbag

The kitbag is currently on display and Dorothy is safe to go “On the Road” again.

Rock n’ Roll and the first Radio RAAF Butterworth, Malaysia

09 December 2009 by Pen Roberts. 1 Comment
News

“’Rock Around the Clock’ took the place by storm,” recalls Doug Lewin. “People in Butterworth and Penang loved it.”

This was 1956 and the global hit by “Bill Haley and the Comets” was broadcast through a small radio station set up by the men of RAAF No. 2 Construction Squadron at Butterworth in Malaysia. The squadron was there to construct an airfield strip in Butterworth for the British during the Malayan Emergency. They were housed in a camp of Attap huts next to the construction site, and rock was sourced from a quarry about 5 miles away.

Corporal Doug Lewin in the No. 2 Construction Squadron workshop in Butterworth. Next to him is a D7 tractor, that he was repairing. (Photo courtesy of D Lewin.)

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Evacuation of Gallipoli

09 December 2009 by Kerrie Leech. No comments
Collection,From the collection,Personal Stories

Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey. 17 December 1915. A view of Watson's Pier. During the last days of the evacuation, Anzac Beach, was utterly deserted, but fortunately Turkish airmen, flew too high to notice this. G01287

In mid December, 94 years ago, the preparations to evacuate Gallipoli were well underway. Much has been written about the stealth with which the operation was undertaken.  The Private Record collection at the Memorial has a number of accounts of the evacuation written by those who participated in it.  The account below is from Sergeant Robert Clive Hunter who was serving with 6th Light Horse Regiment at the time.  He recounts his experience in a letter to his parents shortly after the event.   

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