Hyde Park Barracks

This post is a report of a recent brief visit to the Hyde Park Barracks Museum.

I have chosen to blog about this particular venue as I was very impressed with the way in which the building and its collection had been curated. It found a great balance between engagement with the collection; concise and informative narrative, and some innovative and elegant displays.

The facility provides good free printed guides for adults and an interactive workbook for children.

As well as single entry tickets this facility can be included in a pass which covers this venue and three other museums:

• Museum of Sydney
• Justice and Police Museum
• Susannah Place Museum

The building has had a varied history, which can be divided into four phases:

• 1817 - 1848 Convict Period (50,000 convicts)
• 1848 - 1886 Immigration and Asylum Period (40,000 women and children)
• 1887 - 1979 Courts and Offices Period
• 1979 - today Museum Period

The main focus of the museum is on the first two periods of time.

The facility was listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Register in 2010, along with ten other Australian Sites which document the convict history of Australia.

For people interested in the history of Australia this site is well worth the time and small cost associated with a visit.

External view of the Barracks.  The building was designed by a convict architect, Francis Greenway, who received a full pardon for his work.

Rats which at other museums in Sydney are used as an icon for the arrival of the plague in Sydney in 1900 AD are here lauded as the archaeologist's friend as many of the items in the collection were preserved in the dry environment of rat nests. 'Ratty' is the mascot for the kids' interpretative guide.

Rats were not kind to all of the artefacts placed in their care.

Clever use of visual prompts allows the visitor to intuit the one time presence of a staircase.

Convict Period - On the third floor a row of hammocks allows visitors to experience a bit of life in the barracks, albeit with a lot less noise and smell than the original inhabitants needed to endure.

Convict Period - Cut out figures act as story boards for selected persons from the 50,000 convicts who passed through the facility.

Convict Period - a display label - a good example of a concise narrative that easily allows the visitor to imagine the story.

Immigration Period - The use of cut out cards gives a sense of layers

Immigration Period - Elegant boxes with multiple glass layers allow for the display of multiple artifacts on different layers.  On some of the boxes the opening of the lid would activate a switch with triggered an audio or a video element.

Immigration Period - screen printed panels allow for one of the 40,000 stories to be told.

Immigration Period - A more encompassing view of the boxes and bed used in the immigration display.

The Warwick Gold Hoax - 1852

Investigation into the history of gold in the Warwick region on 'Trove' uncovered a curious incident in which a local 'artist', a Mr Edward Thomson hoaxed a Mr Edward Hammond Hargraves. Hargraves is the man credited with discovering the first payable gold field in Bathurst [1], the discovery that started the gold rush to that part of Australia.  It is a juicy little story and I should not have been surprised that Maurice French had written of it [2].  

According to numerous sources Hargraves and money had trouble staying together; he had a number of failed ventures in colonial Australia, visited the gold fields in California where he upskilled in the latest gold prospecting techniques and then returned to Australia.  The Australian dictionary of Biography notes ...

He returned to Sydney in January 1851, planning to win a fortune not so much by finding gold but by claiming the government reward for discovery of a payable goldfield. 

...

Although Hargraves exaggerated and falsified his finds he never denied his main purpose. The government gave him £10,000 and from 1877 an annual pension of £250. [3]

SBS notes

The audacity of Hargraves knew no bounds. He claims in his autobiography "it was never my intention ... to work for gold, my only desire was to make the discovery, and rely on the Government and the country for my reward". [4]

French describes Hargraves as a 'charlatan', 

Intrinsically lazy and an inveterate dreamer, Hargraves was more a skilled self publicist than a prospector. [2]

He had certainly cheated his partners in the Bathurst venture.  As French tells the story, this little episode from the papers is a test by Warwick locals into the credentials of the person of Edward Hargraves.

Mr Hargraves wrote to the colonial secretary of the day informing him thus [4] ..

... I have received a note from Mr. Patrick Leslie enquiring whether it was likely that a gold field would be found in the northern districts, I have replied in the negative, so far as my researches have gone. The Canning Downs gold excitement was got up with a leaden bullet covered up, or rather over, with gold leaf, previously beaten out into a nugget, like looking specimen. The perpetrator of this hoax, a Mr. Thompson, an artist, told me so himself, in presence of other gentlemen.

In conclusion, I regret that my labours in these districts should have been of so little avail; but if the inhabitants cannot boast of a gold field, they can assert without fear of contradiction, that they are in possession of the finest part of New South Wales ; indeed, it is the best country I have ever seen.

I have the honour to be, Sir,

Your most obedient servant, 

E.H. HARGRAVES.

Thanks for the compliment about the fineness of our district!  Hargraves' 'name-and-shame' strategy brought a robust response from Mr Thompson who took out letters in both the Sydney Morning Herald [6] and The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser [7].  The text of which follows.

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.TO E. H. HARGRAVES. ESQ. 

Per favour of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Sir,

I observed in the fifth article of your official report on the northern districts, an assertion, which I beg leave, with all due deference to you, most flatly to contradict. You state that the "Canning Downs" gold excitement was got up by means of a leaden bullet, covered with gold leaf, having previously been beaten into a nugget-like shape - that the perpetrator of this hoax (a Mr. Thomson, an artist) told you so himself, in the presence of other gentlemen. That I was the perpetrator of this hoax (if hoax it could be called), I don't deny ; but you must be labouring under some mistake in supposing that I told you the bullet was the cause of the Canning Downs gold excitement. I was not aware of having made such a statement to you, or to any one else. On the contrary, when you were at Warwick I told you that I had found gold in small quantities, at Lord John's Swamp, the Severn, and in gullies leading into M'Intyre's Brook ; and that I had every reason to believe it would be found to pay if properly worked. The fact of gold having been found at Lord John's Swamp may be proved by the testimony of Messrs. Patrick Leslie, W. Leith Hay, E. Moriarty, surveyor, and many others, who were present when I washed out gold from the soil at Lord John's Swamp. Messrs. Samuel Burgoyne and R. Wright were present when got at the Severn, and Messrs. Burgoyne and M'Lachlan when got in a gully leading into M'Intyre's Brook.

To return to the great northern leaden bullet hoax. It was perpetrated long after I had given up digging at Lord John's Swamp, where I had swamped more time and money than I could well afford (artists in this colony are not proverbial for being overburdened with heavy purses) ; so that the bullet could not have been the cause of the Canning Downs gold excitement, as you are pleased to term it. I, more willingly than I otherwise would have done, gave up (for the time) the search for gold, having heard that the great Hargraves was about to visit the district. But, alas! when he came what did he do? He jogged quietly along the road on the old chesnut, and saw some black mud rocks, and porphyritic schist. (What are these?) When at Warwick, not-withstanding the entreaties of many that he would visit M'Intyre's Brook, the great Hargraves could not be prevailed upon to exchange the comforts of Darling Downs for a camp, with beef and damper, at the Brook.

You have been blamed, and I think not unjustly, for not making an attempt in this neighbourhood ; but, with the tools you had, I was at a loss to know how you could give any place a fair trial. When I saw them previous to their sale by auction at Ipswich, they appeared to be most inadequate, at the same time flimsy articles. The pick did not seem to have much to do for some considerable time, being thick with rust down to the very point (but the black mud rock might have caused that). The prospecting pan bore most suspicious traces of beef or some other viands.

Some ill-natured people have asserted that I was supplied with gold dust by Mr. George Leslie, and that when visitors came to the Canning Downs diggings, I what they call "peppered" the hole, and then washed out the provided gold dust in their presence, so as to inveigle them into the belief that it was there in quantity, Now, on behalf of Mr. George Leslie, as well as for my own credit, I declare this to be a gross and malicious falsehood. Some of said charitable individuals are of opinion that I was a paid agent of the squatters of these districts, to deceive and humbug the multitude by the above means. This, also, I now beg leave publicly to contradict. My digging exertions at Lord John's Swamp, and elsewhere, were as much for my own amusement as any thing else. Digging is good for the health, and, judging from appearances, seems to have agreed with you in an eminent degree, seeing that your condition is certainly improved within the last year or two.

In conclusion, I beg to inform you that I intend to try the digging in this district again, and heartily hope may be successful, if it is only to prove that the great E. H. Hargraves knows just about as much of geology as I do, and that is precious little. At the same time I regret that E. H. Hargraves would not find something better and more satisfactory for his official reports concerning the auriferous qualities of the northern districts than the trivial piece of tomfoolery he has deemed fit to make mention of.

I beg to remain, Sir, &c, 

EDWARD THOMSON   

An Artist. Warwick, Darling Downs, August 9.

There is a larrikin feel to the artist's response and it is one of the things that amazes me about old newspapers - the way in which persons can be so freely maligned in the press.
As history will prove there was gold to be found in the region but it was not enough to become the region's focus.

References

[1] State Library of NSW (Edward Hammond Hardgraves Retrieved Jan 13, 2016 from http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/history_nation/gold/rumours/hargraves.html

[2] Maurice French (1989) 'A leaden bullet covered with gold leaf': Gold discoveries on the Darling Downs before separation.
https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:205779/s00855804_1989_13_11_417.pdf

[3] Bruce Mitchell, 'Hargraves, Edward Hammond (1816–1891)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hargraves-edward-hammond-3719/text5837, published first in hardcopy 1972, accessed online 13 January 2016.

[4] SBS http://www.sbs.com.au/gold/story.php?storyid=32

[5] LATEST NEWS. (1852, July 28). The Moreton Bay Courier(Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 - 1861), p. 1 Supplement: Supplement to the "Moreton Bay Courier". Retrieved January 13, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3713062

[6] ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. TO E. H. HARGRAVES. ESQ. (1852, September 11). The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 3. Retrieved January 13, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12939920

[7] Original Correspondence. (1852, September 15). The Maitland Mercury and Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW : 1843 - 1893), p. 4. Retrieved January 13, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article663503