Goulburn Mulwaree Library assistant Renee Ludlow, Local Studies Officer Fran O’Flynn and library assistant Jennifer Guiver with a trunk found at the Mechanics Institute building and full of historic minutes, and visitors’ and suggestion books. Much of the documentation has since been digitised. Photo: John Thistleton.
Goulburn Mulwaree librarians have taken an audience of history buffs and researchers time-travelling to the early 1940s when civic fathers almost ruined one of the heritage city’s most treasured buildings.
Only Australia’s austerity drive during World War II stopped them from their radical renovation plans in 1941.
Why would anyone want to risk turning architect Edmund Cooper Manfred’s acclaimed main-street building into a lopsided edifice?
During a presentation marking Family History Month, assistant librarian Renee Ludlow said Goulburn was growing at the time and the council wanted more office space and to add show and demonstration rooms to the ornate 1889 building.
These rooms would be for displaying electrical appliances large and small, from fridges and freezers to kettles and the like, for Goulburn housewives.
Manfred, who had completed extensions to the building with his son Herbert in 1936, had died in 1941. Herbert was on active duty overseas in the war, so a Sydney architect, David Gillespie, was given the brief. He put forward seven options, most featuring huge picture windows at the foot of the building.
Historian Ransome T Wyatt, who released his book The History of Goulburn NSW in 1941, was appalled.
“The addition of glass plate windows and cantilever awnings is equivalent to playing jazz on a cathedral organ,” he said.
Estimated to cost 6807 pounds, the proposed alterations exceeded the national security regulations limit of 5000 pounds on account of the war, and Treasury rejected the council’s application for an exception.
“But I’ll leave it up to you whether you think that was a good thing [the project being abandoned] or a bad thing,” Renee said.
Renee has now digitised the plans and costs, which are accessible by typing in ”town hall alterations” on the library’s website search bar.
The library’s Local Studies Oficer Fran O’Flynn said the librarians liked to share their favourite archives in the hope everyone would be inspired to explore them further.
Library assistant Jennifer Guiver guided the audience to the library website’s local history section, then to maps and scrolled down to ”map warper”, which overlays historic maps onto current ones.
The technology enables people to see how Goulburn has grown and changed over time, how parcels of land have been divided, and compare the streetscapes from 1914 to today’s.
The early map shows land set aside for the Church of England, Goulburn High School and Goulburn Base Hospital.
Noting original land grant blocks on the map is an excellent way to begin house history research, revealing who owned each allotment.
Library assistant Jennifer Guiver’s time travellers’ map on Goulburn Mulwaree Library’s website, and accessible on an iPhone, includes landmarks such as Knowlman’s store (above), Rogers Store, the Mechanics Institute in 1950, and further afield, the Rocky Hill War Memorial and Kenmore Hospital. Photo: Goulburn Mulwaree Library.
Fran said people could also access the ”house and building history” link on the library’s web page, which provided information such as digitised rate book indexes. Armed with that information, people could read what to do next to discover the home’s original owners or successive ones.
Digitised archives include the Mechanics Institute collection, which goes back to an era when the library occupied the building on the corner of Auburn and Montague streets from 1860.
Artefacts from that period included a trunk full of minutes books beginning from 1853, visitors’ and suggestion books, papers and library catalogues.
Fran said the Goulburn Mechanics Institute committee was formed in 1853, following ideals from Britain and Europe in the early 1800s. Sometimes known as a ”school of arts”, their aim was to make education more freely available to people and increase the scope of their knowledge.
The city’s library, which had begun in the first librarian’s parlour in 1854, moved to the Mechanics Institute after it opened in 1860.
In its early years, the institute offered lessons in Latin and drawing, hosted exhibitions including roller skating, technical classes, and the Lyric Theatre. In 1945, Goulburn City Council took over the library’s operation.
Almost every country town had a mechanics institute, performing a significant role in the cultural heritage of NSW.
Fran said the Mechanics Institute was the centre for cultural and commercial events in Goulburn for 91 years. While its ideals were worthwhile, the visitors’ books raised questions for Fran about whether it served the general public.
Goulburn Mechanics Institute on the corner of Auburn and Montague streets, when it hosted the City Library. Photo: Goulburn Mulwaree Library.
“It seemed to me it was quite an exclusive little club,” she said. “The names of members and people that kept appearing were civic leaders, clergymen, newspaper editors, merchants, visiting dignitaries and the like; very few tradesmen, labourers and even fewer women.
“Was it actually open to everyone? Possibly only if you had the right connections.”
These days, however, thanks to technology and the library’s website, a wealth of original material is now preserved for future generations and freely available to people in Goulburn and indeed anywhere in the world.
