Capital history in the news
Botanic Gardens 50th anniversary and exhibition
Turning 50 Botanic Gardens create banksia garden | The Australian National Botanic Gardens is celebrating its 50th anniversary by creating a new garden dedicated to one of Australia’s most beloved and iconic wildflowers, the banksia.
Legacy of Banks and Solander | An exhibition of botanical art at the Australian National Botanic Gardens focusing on plants collected by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander on their voyage of Australia. It coincides with the 250th Anniversary of Cook’s first voyage to Australia and on the Gardens 50th anniversary. See it in the Visitor Centre Gallery until the 25th October 2020.
New exhibitions
Ink in the Lines | A new exhibition which relates personal stories and experiences of Australian veterans through tattoos, Ink in the Lines, is now on display at the Australian War Memorial. It is in the Special Exhibitions Gallery until 27 January 2021. To see it, visitors can book a Galleries and Commemorative Area ticket through the Memorial website at www.awm.gov.au/visit.
Out of This World: Australia in the space age | The National Archives of Australia has a new exhibition Out of This World: Australia in the space age which explores Australia's role in the space race. Bookings are essential and it is open until 14 March 2021.
Capital women
Vale Susan Ryan, pioneer Labor feminist who showed big, difficult policy changes can, and should, be made |The Hon Susan Ryan AO, died unexpectedly on 26th September 2020. Chris Wallace, Associate Professor at the University of Canberra writes of Susan Ryan’s outstanding contribution to public life including details of her political career as the Labor senator for the ACT from December 1975.
Women faced a life of hard labour | Matthews Higgins writes about the toughness of women’s lives in the rural areas surrounding Canberra during the 19th and early 20th century. Without electricity and the other keystones of modern life women led a life of hard work. Besides domestic chores many women also worked at farming tasks as well as supervising their children’s correspondence studies.
Other Canberra history news
Rare relic salvaged from air disaster | Tim the Yowie Man writes about a rare artefact from the Lockheed Hudson bomber which crashed near Canberra airport in 1940 killing all 10 people on board including three members of the Australian cabinet.
Councils of the past: not just roads, rates and rubbish | ArchivesACT article about how Canberrans were politically represented prior to self-government in 1988. This includes the ACT Advisory Council formed in 1930 which tackled all sorts of subjects over the years ranging from the regulation of hairdressers to forward thinking health initiatives.
Acknowledgement: Inspired by the news that the Botanic Gardens are creating a Banksia Garden to celebrate their 50th anniversary the image above is an 1813 engraving of a Scarlet Banksia by Ferdinand Bauer and Robert Brown. It comes from the State Library Victoria. Full details here.
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