Queensland Museum & Community Collections

Category: Uncategorized

  • Cyclone Season and Preparation

    With the first low developing in the Coral Sea it is a good time to enact your cyclone preparedness plans. Usually this should involve: checking that all volunteers and local council staff are aware and have read the cyclone preparedness plan, and understand what need to be done if a cyclone watch…

  • Adaptation and collaboration: creating the gallery for “Cooktown’s War”

    Like many museums across Queensland, James Cook Museum received funding from the Anzac Centenary Local Grants Program. Designed to showcase the museum’s First World War collections, the grant also included time for Ewen and I to provide onsite advice, reconfigure the gallery space and install the exhibition. When Kate Eastick…

  • “Dear Mother…”

    With Remembrance Day just around the corner, I thought it timely to revisit the story of the Fryer brothers and share some of their letters and postcards which are representative of the humanity and filial affection of these four young men. To remind yourself of their story, revisit my blog…

  • Bowen Museum and Historical Society – First World War exhibition

    Recently Queensland Museum staff Ewen McPhee, Dr Melanie Piddocke and Sue Valis visited Bowen Museum and Historical Society to work with the volunteers on their First World War display.  As with many community museums the First World War objects and stories that are held within the Bowen collection are significant on…

  • What lies beneath… three objects that have helped us view the reef

    People’s desire to see  beneath the surface of the sea has inspired a myriad of underwater viewing objects and inventions. From hollow reeds to Leonardo Da Vinci’s early diving apparatus, there has been a whole raft of weird and wonderful creations inspired by our fascination with coral and the reef.…

  • Langenbaker House Conservation Clean

    Before the serious heat of summer struck, MDO Josh Tarrant and I travelled to Ilfracombe to undertake a conservation clean of the objects and interior of Langenbaker House.    I have previously blogged about the history of this remarkable piece of Western Queensland history – moved to Ilfracombe from Barcaldine in…

  • Winton – another step along the road

    The hardworking volunteers of the Winton and District Historical Society will take another positive step forward on their road to recovery when they open parts of their museum to the public again tomorrow, September 1st.  While the main building at the Waltzing Matilda Centre was destroyed by the fire in…

  • Norfolk Island Significance Assessment

    Ewen McPhee recently undertook a significance assessment for the Norfolk Island Museum. The Norfolk Island Museum holds collections and provides historical interpretation from four distinct periods of Norfolk Island History: Polynesian Settlement – 700 – 1500 First Settlement (penal) – 1788 – 1814 Second Settlement (penal) – 1825 – 1855 Third…

  • The legacy of war

    When I was approached by the Springsure Hospital Museum to create a WWI display, I thought it would be an interesting opportunity to research the medical advances made during the war necessitated by the unprecedented injuries inflicted by this new industrial warfare.  The idea for the exhibition was inspired by…