2021 TO 2026

Images in this plan have been sourced from the collections of the National Archive of Australia, National Library of Australia and the National Museum of Australia. Additional images of the building have been provided by Eric Martin and Associates.

National Film & Sound Archive

Heritage Management Plan 2021 to 2026

Prepared by

Eric Martin and Associates

For

National Film & Sound Archive

Eric Martin and Associates Architects logo

10/68 Jardine St KINGSTON ACT 2604

Ph: 02 6260 6395

Fax: 02 62606413

Email: emaa@emaa.com.au

CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

1.2 Previous Reports

1.3 Brief

1.4 Methodology

1.5 Authorship

1.6 Site and Study Area

1.7 Current Status

1.8 Limitations

1.9 Acknowledgements

2.0 DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

2.1 Indigenous History in the Canberra Region

2.2 ANU Campus Heritage Study

2.3 The National Film and Sound Archive site

2.4 Identified Indigenous sites in the vicinity of the National Film and Sound Archive buildings

2.5 First Settlement to Federal City

2.6 A National Museum of Australian Zoology

2.7 Sites and Plans

2.8 The Final Design and Construction

2.9 The MacKenzie Period 1930–1937

2.10 Renewal and Decline

2.11 National Film and Sound Archive

3.0 PHYSICAL EVIDENCE

3.1 Setting

3.2 Landscape

3.3 Main Building

3.4 Interior

3.5 Residence

3.6 Other Details

4.0 ANALYSIS & STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

4.1 Assessment Criteria

4.2 Analysis

4.3 The People

4.4 Comparative Analysis

4.5 Analysis Against Criteria

4.6 Statement of Significance92

4.7 Significance of Components

5.0 STATUTORY REQUIREMENTS AND EXPECTATIONS

5.1 National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA)

5.2 Australian Heritage Council (AHC)

5.3 ACT Heritage Council

5.4 National Capital Authority (NCA)

5.5 National Trust of Australia (ACT) (NTACT)

5.6 Australian Institute of Architects

5.7 Burra Charter

5.8 Arising from the Statement of Significance

5.9 Building Controls

5.10 Access to the Site & Building, and the DDA

5.11 Moral Rights

5.12 Archaeological Constraints

6.0 HERITAGE MANAGEMENT REQUIREMENTS

6.1 Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Act 1999)

6.2 Commonwealth Heritage List

6.3 Commonwealth Heritage Management Principles

6.4 Heritage Management Plan

6.5 Heritage Strategy

7.0 CONSERVATION POLICY

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Overall Conservation Policy Statement

7.3 General

7.4 Future Use of the NFSA buildings

7.5 Potential for Change

7.6 Conservation of the Building and Retention of Significance

7.7 Recording

7.8 Management

7.9 Implementation

8.0 REFERENCES

Interviews

Commonwealth Documents (internal)

Encyclopaedia and Journals

Newspapers

Websites

ATTACHMENT A: COMMONWEALTH HERITAGE LIST CITATION

Place Details

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Background

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) requires that a Heritage Management Plan (HMP) should be prepared for all assets on the National and Commonwealth Heritage Register and that they be updated within every 5 years.

The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) commissioned this update to check that no new material is to hand, to review and change details as may be required and reconfirm policies. As a separate exercise the NFSA also commissioned an update of the Heritage Strategy.

Since the previous HMP the Theatrette has been refurbished, the South Gallery has re-opened for public exhibitions, the Library and Front Room have been re-purposed for public programs or exhibitions, the Director’s Residence has been leased utilised for researchers and conservation of stonework and courtyard render completed and roof repairs undertaken.

Description

Main Building

The main building is symmetrically placed on a block and is set within a landscape which incorporates the former Director’s Residence as a separate building and car parking and roads. It is in an area surrounded by national institutions such as ANU and Australian Academy of Science (Shine Dome).

The main building is a two-storey masonry building with a full basement. It is clad in Hawkesbury sandstone and features an Australian stripped classical style with Art Deco details.

The main façade features a central slightly protruding curved entry portico, which is accessed by a flight of granite steps. Either side of the entrance, the façade is modulated by full height sandstone faced fluted panels and windows. The head of the columns has an engraved panel featuring lizards. Between the panels and windows is a bay of windows at each floor level. The spandrel panels below the windows are decorated with ornate glazed terracotta tiles featuring a deco design.

At each end of the main façade, the walls are modelled with protruding profiled panels of sandstone at the ground floor level and a circular projecting stone at the upper level. This same detail carries through to the side façades, which are generally flush sandstone, with high level steel framed windows (into the galleries).

A large sandstone dish is located on either side of the main entry with a light pole located in the centre. These were originally designed as flower beds.

Some sandstone sills and string courses were replaced in 1986-87 and some patching of sandstone has previously been undertaken.

The sandstone has generally deteriorated with some joints opening up and spalling. This has been investigated and has been recently conserved and protected.

The roof is a flat roof, originally a membrane but with metal roof over the galleries. This was recently repaired. The rainwater heads and downpipes are copper.

There are some lower level windows that provide light on the basement which are of ribbed glass block. Some of the original blocks have been removed and replaced by louvres. There are ventilating holes to the basement on the east and to the upper level on the north and south.

Windows adjacent the main entry include decorative bronze grilles.

Window frames are bronze coloured.

The north and south sides have no ground floor window (as they are a theatre, library and galleries) but the upper windows have internal and external windows with a 200mm gap. The original glass was “tapestry” obscured glass which appears to remain, except for those damaged in the January 2020 hailstorm.

Other elements include a goods hoist installed in 1986-7 to the south side for basement access, a nitrate bunker to the south which is a concrete building with earth mounded on three sides and a concrete and steel balustrade access ramp to the north (infrequently used).

The Annex

The Annex was constructed in 1998. The two-storey building (with plant and services in located in the large basement) has a flat projecting copper roof with copper rainwater heads and downpipes similar to the main building.

Walls are sandstone or sandstone coloured precast concrete. The west side has a pattern of panels and windows with coloured spandrels not unlike the pattern to the east side of the main building. Windows are bronze coloured aluminium. The north and south sides are mainly bronze colour aluminium louvres to plant areas.

The main entry to the west is glazed and includes granite stairs and a granite ramp.

The Residence

The Residence is a two-storey rendered brick cottage with tiled roof. It is generally in quite good condition except for the internal cracking which is quite extensive and damage to the tiled roof due to hail in February 2020. The 2004 advice from John Skurr, structural engineer, made the following comment:

1. the overland flow of the surface stormwater was not satisfactory in itself and is also concluded

as the most likely cause of the general cracking in the external and internal brick walls.

b.     cracked internal and external brick walls especially in the stairwell area.

c.      Floor joist and bearer spans appear to be designed for office loads rather than domestic floor loadings, these proved to be marginally satisfactory.

In 2006 the building was underpinned and drainage around the building improved. The building is externally sound, however internal cracks remain.

The Residence has been used by ANU as a research centre and offices in recent years. This has been achieved without alterations to the plan of

the building.

Externally the building is rendered and painted with stepped detailing to bay windows, main room window and entry. The top of the chimney is also finely detailed. The roof is a hipped terracotta tiled roof with metal gutter and downpipes.

The garage has been converted into a bike shed with a concrete slab floor, asbestos cement ceiling, rough rendered and painted masonry walls. The door is a ledged and braced timber door with D handle.

The laundry now joins with the house and is similarly finished to the residence. It has a painted panelled door with knob handle. The infill to the house includes an electrical distribution board and hot water cylinder.

A woodshed exists adjacent to the garage and is a flat sheeted building with cover strips and a concrete tiled gable roof. The timber door is metal clad.

Other details include a clothesline, brick paving around the house with plastic covered drain and concrete paths that extend to adjacent buildings.

An air conditioning unit is on the east side.

Condition throughout all buildings is reasonable, except for recent hail damage, but internal cracks are extensive and asbestos cement sheeting remains. Rear fly screen is broken.

Condition

The main building is in quite good condition especially with the courtyard render repair underway.

The Annex is in quite good condition.

The former residence is in reasonable condition, except for the recent hail damage, although a large number of cracks exist internally.

Statement of Significance

The NFSA buildings are significant for their original role in housing the Institute of Anatomy. The collection housed became a significant record of Australian fauna and aboriginal life. The Institute also played a role in researching various aspects of national health. The present role, in displaying and interpreting the NFSA audiovisual collection, maintains a high level of national significance for the building.

The setting of the building in an open landscape, the front entrance address to the McCoy Circuit axis and symmetrical planning provides a strong aesthetic appeal to the whole place.

The main building is an outstanding example of inter-war stripped classical with Art Deco detailing comprising a strongly symmetrical plan and elevation treatment. The fenestration has a strong vertical composition, with simply detailed columns. More detailed elements are restricted to spandrel panels and doorways. External detail shows Art Deco influence with a distinctive Australiana character. The interior of the buildings (principally the main building) are fine examples of substantially intact quality Art Deco style interiors.

The NFSA site has strong associational links with significant people involved in its design, development and administration.

• Design Architect > W Hayward Morris.
• Other Architects > J S Murdoch oversaw design process;

• E M Henderson design and documentation involvement for interiors & joinery.

• Landscape Designer > A E Bruce.
• Administrators > Sir Colin McKenzie, founding director and the driving force in creating the Institute;> Sir John Butters, Chairman FCC had a strong influence on the development of the V shape plan; and> Sir Neville Howse, Minister for Health & Defence at the time was Instrumental in getting Cabinet approval to construct the building.

The usage of the Innes Bell Hollow Block system in construction of the ground floor is indicative of the use of a technique which was technically advanced for its time. The building is a rare example of the use of this technique which was a predecessor to the modern waffle slab.

The building has strong social links with the community through its original occupancy as the Institute of Anatomy and currently as the headquarters for the National Film and Sound Archive.

Overall Conservation Policy Statement

The NFSA, its site and buildings are Commonwealth Heritage Listed significant elements of our Australian cultural heritage and retain a high degree of integrity from their original construction. The objective of the following conservation policies is to manage the heritage significance of the place in a manner appropriate to conserve and protect the official listed values and heritage significance associated with the building and site, and thereby its significance. At the same time the building and site need to continue to be used as an archive, exhibition and office facility.

Conservation Policies

Conservation Objective 1

To ensure that any actions which will impact on the official listed values and heritage significance of the place are in compliance with the EPBC Act, in reference to the Burra Charter and in consultation with professional heritage conservation planning experts.

Policy 1.1

The statement of cultural significance and list of items set out in Section 4.7 should be accepted as the primary basis for future planning work and management of the building and site.

Policy 1.2

The future conservation and development of the NFSA Buildings and site should be carried out in accordance with the EPBC Act and principles of the Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance (Burra Charter). Actions to always be consistent with the requirements of the EPBC Act.

Policy 1.3

The policies recommended, and options discussed throughout this document should be endorsed and followed when considering future planning and work associated with the NFSA Buildings and site

Policy 1.4

The principles of protecting and conserving the building to retain the significance and protect official listed values as outlined in Section 4.7 to be adopted.

Policy 1.5

Any potential action that may affect the official listed values of the NFSA need to refer to the EPBC Act and referrals, especially those are that have a low tolerance for change.

Conservation Objective 2

Ensure ongoing use conserves and protects the official listed values and heritage significance of the place and the associated values and meanings.

Policy 2.1

The main building should retain a predominantly exhibition function. Smaller spaces within the building could retain an office, display, storage or meeting function. The residence could be returned to a single residence or continued as office space.

Policy 2.2

The NFSA buildings be conserved, protected and adapted in a manner that does not compromise their official listed values and heritage significance and in a way consistent with the policies set down in this Heritage Management Plan.

Policy 2.3

The displays and resources in the main building are to remain accessible to the public.

Policy 2.4

In order to conserve and protect the official listed values and heritage significance, including the landscape setting, any works (such as site development for roads, car parking and buildings) need to be considered in reference to the EPBC Act with major works needing to be referred to the Minister for Environment.

Policy 2.5

Prepare a landscape plan to guide management of the landscape setting of the place to protect official listed values and heritage significance so that replacement of trees that are posing a danger or require replacement for other reasons and with reference to the EPBC Act.

Conservation Objective 3

To retain the existing and historical forms, details and character of the place and significant elements while allowing ongoing effective use as conference/meeting venue. Changes to the buildings and site can be permitted if essential for the ongoing conservation for the place provided the impact on official listed values and heritage significance as per the EPBC Act is nil or minimal.

Policy 3.1

An additional building on the site could be permitted provided it does not affect the official listed values and heritage significance of the site and it meets the requirements of the EPBC Act.

Policy 3.2

Further extensions and alterations to the main building are not supported.

Policy 3.3

Further extensions and alterations to the residence are not supported.

Policy 3.4

Alterations are to be sympathetic to official listed values and heritage significance and are not to be intrusive.

Policy 3.5

Changes to meet statutory requirements as defined by the National Construction Code Volume 1 (Building Code of Australia), Australian Standards or Authorities shall be considered in the context of the Policies 3.4, 4.1 4.3.

Policy 3.6

Repairs and maintenance are essential to heritage conservation and will ensure ongoing conservation and protection of the official listed values and heritage significance.

Conservation Objective 4

With reference to the Australia ICOMOS Burra Charter and the EPBC Act, ensure the proper conservation and protection of the official listed values and heritage significance of the NFSA and site, where the various components contributing to its cultural significance are maintained and interpreted.

Policy 4.1

Items of exceptional significance (official listed values) are to be conserved and protected including through monitoring.

Policy 4.2

Items of considerable significance are to be conserved and protected. Intervention in the items or fabric can occur as long as it complies with the EPBC Act and in reference to the Burra Charter and protects official listed values.

Policy 4.3

Items not official listed elements or the items of lower significance, such as those of moderate or some significance in clause 4.7 should be retained but could be altered, removed, adapted or remodelled to allow for the conservation of elements of greater significance, or for operational requirements but only after consideration

of alternatives that minimise any intervention or impact and

appropriate recording. Any actions will need to comply with EPBC ACT.

Policy 4.4

The items considered intrusive in Clause 4.7 can be removed at any time, subject to advice from a heritage specialist and photographic recording.

Conservation Objective 5

Ensure processes are in place to record the place before change occurs to maintain an historical record.

Policy 5.1

Original details and finishes must be recorded prior to any major refurbishment or modification. Recording should be undertaken by a heritage specialist and the record retained by the NFSA and included in reports to the Minister in accordance with the EPBC Act.

Conservation Objective 6

To provide a management framework that includes reference to any statutory requirements and agency mechanisms for the conservation and protection of the official listed values and heritage significance of the place.

Policy 6.1

Existing registers be updated with the details contained within this report.

Policy 6.2

In accordance with the EPBC Act the HMP must be reviewed within every 5-year period. The review is to check that no new material is to hand, to review and change details as may be required and to reconfirm policies.

Policy 6.3

A clear management structure and system needs to be maintained by NFSA to ensure works occur in a correct way, and Conservation Policies are applied.

Policy 6.4

Interpretation of the site should be promoted in accordance with the Interpretation Plan.

Policy 6.5

A furniture study be undertaken to identify all items of loose furniture that were part of the original Institute of Anatomy. The furniture is to be conserved and protected and used within the existing building in conjunction with the NFSA collection management policy.

Policy 6.6

All original documentation for the building should be retained by the National Archives of Australia (NAA) and NFSA.

Policy 6.7

Procedures for divestment (in accordance with the EPBC Act), sale or lease of the property must consider potential impact on official listed values and heritage significance and put in place methods to conserve and protect heritage significance and be referred to the Minister for the Environment.

Policy 6.8

Access to the building needs to be controlled so the collection is not placed under threat or concern.

Policy 6.9

Sensitive material to be identified and access to it controlled by management policies.

Policy 6.10

Stakeholder consultation to occur as per EPBC Act. Additional consultation with stakeholders or interested groups can occur at the discretion of the NFSA.

Policy 6.11

Management of sensitive information to be implemented in ways that are not inconsistent with the EPBC Act.

Policy 6.12

Unforeseen discoveries or disturbances require special attention.

Policy 6.13

Professional conservation advice to be sought when necessary.

Implementation

The NFSA is responsible for overseeing works carried out to all properties in their ownership including those demonstrating official listed values. This includes funding, review and monitoring the HMP and conservation works. Future works and enhancement works will need to meet EPBC Act requirements. Ongoing and regular maintenance is required.

1.0             INTRODUCTION

1.1   Background

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) requires that a Heritage Management Plan (HMP) should be prepared for all assets on the National and Commonwealth Heritage Register and that they be updated within every 5 years.

The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) commissioned this update to check that no new material is to hand, to review and change details as may be required and reconfirm policies. As a separate exercise the NFSA also commissioned an update of the Heritage Strategy.

Since the previous HMP the Theatrette has been refurbished, the South Gallery has re-opened for public exhibitions, the Library and Front Room have been re-purposed for public programs or exhibitions, the Director’s Residence has been leased to the Australian National University (ANU) and conservation of stonework is underway.

1.2 Previous Reports

1995     Conservation Plan Volumes 1 - 3, Philip Cox Richardson & Partners Pty Ltd

2009    Heritage Management Plan, Eric Martin & Associates

1.3 Brief

The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) requires the Heritage Management Plan to be reviewed in accordance with Policy 6.2 of the existing plan.

“The Heritage Management Plan must be reviewed within every 5-year period. The review is to check that no new material is to hand, to review and change details as may be required and to reconfirm policies.”

1.4 Methodology

The methodology is based on the methods set out in JS Kerr The Conservation Plan, Australia ICOMOS guides and technical notes and the Environment Biodiversity and Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) requirements.

It includes:

        Update and expansion of documentary evidence and bring it up to date to 2020.

        Detailed inspection of the building to update the description and condition which will also benefit from work, maintenance records and reports undertaken since the last HMP.

        Reassess the significance through a comparative analysis, assessment against criteria and a review of the statement of significance.

        Preparation of detailed opportunities and constrains arising from the statement of significance, NFSA requirements, statutory controls, regulations and other stakeholders.

        Preparation of detailed conservation policies and explanation of what they mean to NFSA and then establish the management required for ongoing conservation of facilities. This will establish and define the requirements of the schedules in the EPBC Act and provide a practical basis for ongoing management and a schedule of works in priority order.

The assessment includes the site, landscape, buildings and relevant details and considers the past HMPs and Heritage Strategy.

The draft document went out for public review before being finalised.

The public consultation included:

        Notice to Friends of the NFSA;

        Letters to National Trust of Australia (ACT) and Australian Institute of Architects; and

        Advertisement in the Canberra Times and The Australian.

3 Friends of the NFSA requested copies.

No comments were received.

1.5 Authorship

This HMP has been prepared by:

| Conservation Architects | Eric Martin & Associates | Eric Martin AM | | | | Bronwynne Jones | | Historian | | Dr Brendan O’Keefe | | Landscape Architect | Redbox | David Moyle | | Archaeologist | DiPetaia Research | Dr Peter Dowling |

1.6 Site and Study Area

The study area includes the whole block bordered by Liversidge Street and McCoy Circuit, Acton (refer Figure 1). The area includes the NFSA main building and Annex, the residence, and the associated roads, parking, paths and landscape.

Figure 1: Location Plan, 2018 (Google Earth 2018)

View image in the official source

Birds eye view of National Film and Sound Archive of Australia from Google Earth.

1.7 Current Status

NFSA is situated on Designated Land. This is Territory land in the ACT where the National Capital Authority exercises planning control. It is recognised with the following listings heritage listings:

        Institute of Anatomy (former) McCoy Cct, ACTON ACT, Commonwealth Heritage List, Place No 105351 22 June 2004.1

        Institute of Anatomy (former) McCoy Cct, ACTON ACT, Register of the National Estate, Place ID 13261 dated 21 October 1980 (note this register is no longer active).2

        National Film and Sound Archive (Australian Institute of Anatomy), The Australian Institute of Architects, listing dated 9 October 2010.3

        Institute of Anatomy/National Film and Sound Archive, National Trust Register of Classified Places1981.4

The Main Building was removed from the ACT Heritage List as the National Capital Authority (NCA) has planning control.

1.8  Limitations

The condition report is general and does not include a room by room detail and references other reports. Condition assessment was limited to a visual inspection.

The HMP considers the building and setting only and does not consider the Institute of Anatomy collection that existed in the building or the current NFSA collection which is managed under the NFSA Act and relevant collection management policies.

1.9 Acknowledgements

The access to information, the site and previous details has been greatly assisted by Craig Revell of NFSA whose assistance and cooperation has been greatly appreciated. Other NFSA officers assisted in providing access and information which is also appreciated.

View image in the official source

1     http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahdb/search.pl?mode=place_detail;place_id=105351

2     http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/ahdb/search.pl?mode=place_detail;place_id=13261

3     http://www.architecture.com.au/docs/default-source/nat-notable-buildings/national-film-sound-archive.pdf?sfvrsn=0

4     Provided by the National Trust of Australia

2.0                 DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

2.1    Indigenous History in the Canberra Region

Archaeological investigations in the ACT have revealed a Pleistocene antiquity of Indigenous occupation in the Southern Highlands of Eastern Australia, centring on the Murrumbidgee River and tributaries. Excavations at Birrigai rock shelter in Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve have produced evidence for relatively discrete phases of occupation of the shelter dating to back to c.25,000 BP5. A first phase of occupation beginning in c.25,000 BP was of low intensity use of the site which was maintained through to c.3,000 BP when occupational intensity increases dramatically. This increase in Indigenous occupation is reflected in many other places in the southern highlands. Around c.100 BP the evidence for occupation, such as charcoal from fires and artefact density, decreases. This period sees the onset of European impact on the landscape and the subsequent impacts on Indigenous cultural and economic practices.

The archaeological investigation at the Birrigai Rock Shelter has therefore revealed a deep antiquity for human use of this area of the highlands and more specifically to the Canberra region. It should be noted, however, that the c.25,000 BP date should not be seen as the earliest arrival of Indigenous people into the ACT region but as the earliest radio-carbon date so

far obtained in an archaeological sequence. The actual antiquity of human occupation in the area almost certainly goes back to a much earlier time.

Apart from Josephine Flood’s work in the 1980s, recent excavations at sites in the Namadgi Ranges of the ACT6 and theses by several ANU students, there has been little detailed archaeological research undertaken in the ACT. Our knowledge of the period from the Pleistocene to European arrival is sparse. Most subsequent archaeological work in the ACT has been development driven, consisting mainly of non-intrusive surface surveys. The results have, however, revealed many areas, especially in the lower valleys, that have great research potential. This knowledge vacuum is an extraordinary situation, given the known antiquity of human occupation and the scope for further rigorous scientific investigation. Additionally, the ACT has some of the most important wetland areas in Australia that can provide invaluable data regarding the palaeoecology of the region.7

Information derived from existing radio-carbon dates of cultural deposits dating to the early to mid-Holocene have provided some evidence that people were active in the high country during the last 9,000 to 6,000 years when climatic conditions were suitable for a hunter-gatherer economy.

An increase in active occupation and use of the area appears to have peaked at around 2,000 BP. But recent excavations have revealed, an apparent decrease in cultural evidence dating to between 4,500 and 2,000 BP, which is in contrast to major population shifts seen in other archaeological sites in southeast Australia. Whether this reflects an actual behavioural trend uniquely relating to the highland areas of the ACT is still unclear and will require further investigation.8

But, notwithstanding the need for more research, it can be reliably assumed that the National Film and Sound Archive is located on the traditional lands of the Indigenous people who have inhabited this area for at least 25,000 years. Their descendants continue to live in Canberra and the surrounding region and consider it their ancestral Country. Cultural, historical and archaeological evidence suggests that the Canberra region was an area traversed and occupied by several socio-linguistic groups (Ngarigo, Ngambri, Ngunnawal, Ngunawal, Walgalu) and an important place for meetings and ceremonies. This concept is today firmly held by the living descendants of the Indigenous groups and contributes to the foundation of their current cultural history and beliefs.

View image in the official source

5     Flood, J., Magee, D. & English, B. 1987, ‘Birrigai: a Pleistocene site in the south-eastern highlands, Archaeology in Oceania, 22:9-26; Flood, J. 2010 Moth Hunters of the Australian Capital Territory, J.M. Flood, Canberra; Theden-Ringl. F., 2016 ‘Aboriginal presence in the high country: new dates from the Namadgi Rangers in the Australian Capital Territory, Australian Archaeology, Vol 82:1 pp. 25-42, (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs

/10.1080/03122417.2016.1163955accessed January 2018),

6     Theden-Ringl, ibid.

7     Brockwell, S. & Dowling, P., The Archaeology of the Australian Capital Territory. A strategic region for understanding cultural and natural landscapes in south eastern Australia over the last 20,000 years, paper delivered at the Australian Archaeological Association conference, 2010.

8     Theden-Ringl, 2016, ibid.

A 2013 review of ethnographic, linguistic and historical sources relating to traditional Aboriginal associations to Country for the broader ACT region, concluded that,

the Canberra area before European settlement would have had highly complex systems of associations with the land found elsewhere in Australia but that those systems broke down early in the colonial historical piece. It is clear that the combined effects of massive demographic stress, alienation from country, forced adjustments and necessary engagements with European settlers led to an early breakdown of original relationships to land and landed identity.9

2.2     ANU Campus Heritage Study

In 2012 a heritage study of the ANU campus consulted the Representative Aboriginal Organisations (RAOs)

on the cultural significance of the campus and wider areas along the Molonglo River corridor (Lake Burley Griffin), Sullivans Creek corridor and Black Mountain. Although the NFSA boundary is outside the ANU campus area it is immediately adjacent

and intimately connected with the natural and Aboriginal cultural landscape.10

The following observations about the ANU campus and surrounding area were made by the individual representatives from the ACT’s

RAOs and included in the heritage study. Most observations were made independently between the groups, indicating a generally held common understanding of the place. Some observations have been paraphrased and abbreviated due to the sensitive nature of the material provided

by some of the representatives.

The meanings and values associated with the material have not been changed. Parts of the ANU campus with cultural significance include:

1. The biodiversity corridor along Sullivans Creek and into Acton Ridge is important. It reflects the fact that Sullivans Creek was an important water course and resource zone that will have contributed to the attractiveness of the place as a meeting area. The conservation of this zone is considered important.
2. The whole of the campus is significant due to the high usage of the area by Aboriginal people prior to the arrival of Europeans. It was part of a well-used zone for meetings and trading and was located in close proximity to important ceremonial areas, including the corroboree site near the entrance to the Botanic Gardens. The intensity of use of the area is attested to by the historical observations about the number of campfires along Sullivans Creek.
3. Despite its recent modification, Sullivans Creek itself is identified as a feature that embodies the significance of the campus as a meeting place as well as a resource-rich zone. The conservation of this feature is important. The rehabilitation of the northern section of this waterway for natural water filtering is also considered to be an important proposal.
4. Acton Ridge is part of a track that connected a series of important landmarks: Mount Rogers, Black Mountain and Capital Hill—the latter being a sacred site.
5. Surrounding features with associative cultural significance:

        Black Mountain is an important landscape feature with connections to other landscape features.

–        In particular the connection between Mount Rogers, Black Mountain and Capital Hill is very important.

–        Black Mountain with Mount Ainslie formed a pair of landmarks also used for navigation and landscape recognition. They were seen as being representative of women’s breasts.

        More than one corroboree site was identified during this process: one where the entrance to the Botanic Gardens now stands (noted above), one just to the south of Black Mountain Drive and one further to the south, now submerged under the lake. None of these are directly affected by works on campus.

        Black Mountain was part of a longer and more substantial walking/tracking route up the east coast of Australia. Now parts of that walking track have been incorporated into the ‘National Trail’.

Archaeological evidence has shown that the Molonglo River, Ginninderra Creek and Murrumbidgee River corridors were important Indigenous resource zones that attracted a considerable level of hunter-gatherer occupation. The importance of these zones has been demonstrated by archaeological surveys where several hundred Aboriginal sites including open camps sites, stone quarries, scarred trees and ceremonial sites have been recorded. The proliferation of stone artefact sites, their geographical locations and densities have indicated that human activities were focused on the gentle slopes, spurs and alluvial flats bordering the riverine corridors where access to water and food sources were readily available. The NFSA site, is located in such an area on high ground above the former Molonglo River and would have been a focal area of subsistence activities and movement for several millennia.

View image in the official source

9     Kwok, N. Considering Traditional Aboriginal Affilliations in the ACT Region, draft report to Australian Capital territory Government, Canberra, 2013, (http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1031698/Documents.pdf, accessed 31 January, 2018).

10   Godden Mackay Logan, 2012, ANU Heritage Study Acton Campus, vol 1, Report prepared for The Australian National University.

An archaeological assessment of the Murrumbidgee River Corridor within the ACT was undertaken in the early 1980s.11 The general survey findings indicated that there were Aboriginal sites throughout the Murrumbidgee corridor environment, with both riverine and non-riverine oriented economic activities being reflected. However, the survey showed a strong positive association between the concentrations of sites with distance from water sources. Higher concentrations of sites were common in close proximity to water sources (for example the Murrumbidgee and Molonglo Rivers). Such an association is indicative of a high economic exploitation of resources within river valleys and permanent water sources.

2.3    The National Film and Sound Archive site

In 1919, on a visit to the site of the new Australian Capital, Henry Percival Moss, the Commonwealth Chief Electrical Engineer, found a stone axe head in the vicinity ‘quite close to the Acton offices. In 1925 an examination of the surface

of a ‘sandy ridge’ between Old Parliament House and the Molonglo River resulted in the discovery and collection of several stone scrapers and points. At around the same time another axe head was located during the laying out of the laws in front of Old Parliament House. During 1929 and 1930 and succeeding years Moss made several surveys of the City and Acton areas. He identified particular areas of focal occupation along the Molonglo corridor:

        The site of the Institute of Anatomy and the peninsula running from it around to Lenox Crossing near the Acton offices.

        The long sandy spur running down from Black Mountain towards the Forestry School.

        The western slopes of Mount Russell or Mount Pleasant at Duntroon and possibly the eastern slopes also, which have been built over since 1911.

        An area between Duntroon and Scott’s Crossing on the north bank of the Molonglo.

        An area between Scott’s Crossing and Lennox Crossing including the area around Provisional Parliament

House (now the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House).12

Moss continues:

[In 1931 and 1932 the area bounded by the Institute of Anatomy and Sullivan’s Creek and the Hospital yielded a large grinding stone and two pounding stones. This grinding stone is well adapted for resting on a man’s knees while he sharpens the edge of an axe or other tool.

One or two chips were also found and during the same period Mr. Kinsella, of Sydney, found a fine axe-head in the same locality.13

Moss collected over 300 stone artefacts in the area now defined as Acton and Canberra City, some of which were first exhibited in the Institute of Anatomy and then later formed the Moss collection of stone artefacts at the National Museum of Australia. Moss concludes that:

While much material was collected on ridges exposed to the four winds of heaven as well as the blasting heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter, a considerable amount was recovered from depths ranging from two or three to six feet [0.6 or 0.9 to 1.8 metres] below the surface and had thus been protected against weathering.14

2.4    Identified Indigenous sites in the vicinity of the National Film and Sound Archive buildings

        Sullivans Creek 1: a corroboree site recorded in the Canberra Archaeological Society database from information provided by Bluett in 1954. The site is listed as destroyed, but location data indicates that it was close to the lower reaches of Sullivans Creek.

        Institute of Anatomy Site: a hatchet found in 1934 by Kinsela. The location of this artefact was recorded as 100m west of the Institute of Anatomy, near Sullivans Creek. The details of the location are unknown, but it is considered to have been destroyed.15

Sites on the eastern side of Black Mountain:

        BM1: Isolated artefact recorded in 1985 (no description details) located just off Black Mountain Drive.

        BM2: Artefact scatter comprising three artefacts also recorded in 1985 (no description details). Located on a small terrace on a ridge running down the eastern side of Black Mountain towards the southern end of Sullivans Creek.

        BM3: Isolated artefact recorded in 1985 (no description details) but located nearby on the same ridge as BM2.

        BM4: Artefact scatter and Potential Archaeological Deposit (PAD) recorded in 1985.

Comprises 19 artefacts, including quartz, quartzite, and chert pieces. Artefact types include two cores and the rest flakes.

        BM5: Scarred tree of probable Aboriginal origin in 1995.38 Located up the northern side of Black Mountain to the west of CSIRO.

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11   Barz, R.K & Winston-Gregson 1981 Murrumbidgee River Corridor. An Archaeological Survey for the NCDC, National Capital Development Commission, Canberra (unpublished report ACT Heritage Library).

12   H.P. Moss, ‘Evidences of Stone Age occupation of the Australian Capital Territory’, Report of the Twenty-Fourth Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, 1939, pp. 163-166.

13 Ibid, p. 164.

14 Ibid, p. 165.

15   Godden Mackay Logan, 2012.

        BMF9: Isolated artefact recoded in 2003.39 No description details provided. Located to the west

of BM5.16

Vicinity of the International Sculpture Park and Old Canberra House:

        Black chert core recorded in 2018

– well worked, 38.5 x 29.5 x 19.5

with 20% remaining.

        Silcrete flake recorded in 2018

– retouched edge.

Both these artefacts were located at the base of a slope which has undergone extensive erosion of the topsoil.17

ANU Campus:

        5 scarred trees situated throughout the campus.

2.5  First Settlement to Federal City

The land on which the Institute of Anatomy was eventually built formed part of the first European settlement of the Canberra district. In late 1823, stockmen employed by Joshua John Moore, a clerk to the Judge-Advocate in Sydney, arrived in the district with a herd of cattle and occupied a tract of land between Mount Ainslie, Black Mountain and the Molonglo River. The stockmen erected huts and stockyards on the land, specifically on the site of what later became the Royal Canberra Hospital. In October 1824, Moore obtained a ticket of occupation for the land and just over two years later took up an option to purchase an estate amounting to 1,000 acres. During the 1830s, Moore had a cottage erected on the property – also on the later site of the hospital – even though he did not reside there.

The economic depression of the early 1840s seriously damaged Moore’s financial position, forcing him to sell his ‘Canberry’ property in 1843. The purchaser was Lieutenant Arthur Jeffreys, an officer of the Royal Navy who married one of the daughters of Robert Campbell of Duntroon. Jeffreys named the property ‘Acton’ and, although he and his descendants did not live there, the Jeffreys family was to retain ownership of the land for almost eighty years. Arthur Jeffreys himself leased the cottage on the property to the Church of England, which used the building as its local rectory. This arrangement continued until 1873 when the Church erected a new rectory building. The Jeffreys family then leased the property to Arthur Brassey who used the property as a grazing run. Brassey remained in occupation right up until the Commonwealth resumed the land for the federal capital in 1911, giving Brassey the dubious distinction of becoming the first grazier to be displaced by the government’s acquisition of the Federal Capital Territory. The resumption was contested by the Jeffreys family, but the dispute was settled in November 1912.18

Preparations, meanwhile, were being made for the establishment of the new federal capital. In May 1912, Walter Burley Griffin’s scheme had been chosen as the winner of the design competition for the proposed city. In Griffin’s design, the site on which the Institute of Anatomy would later be built lay on the eastern extremity of the area designated for the city’s university. Although the original plan showed a building on the site, the proposed structure was merely an unnamed component of the university complex.

The subsequent departmental plan for the city, drawn up after criticisms of Griffin’s design, moved the site of the university eastward, placing the future location of the Institute of Anatomy near the city’s hospital. In the event, this plan was overturned by Griffin’s modification of his original design. This ‘preliminary’ plan restored the university quarter of the city to its original location and displayed McCoy Circuit in much its present shape and location. This plan, which became the working design for the city, showed the centre of McCoy Circuit occupied by an unnamed building which again formed part of the university group.19

2.6  A National Museum of Australian Zoology

The driving force behind the establishment of the Australian Institute of Anatomy was Dr (later Professor Sir) William Colin MacKenzie, known as Colin. MacKenzie had been born of Scottish immigrant parents at Kilmore north of Melbourne in 1877. He later studied medicine at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1898. A year after his graduation, he became the senior resident medical officer at the Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, a position he was to hold for two years. It was probably during this time that he first developed the interest in childhood diseases that would later play a significant part in the setting up of the Institute of Anatomy. Leaving the Children’s Hospital at the end of 1901, MacKenzie entered private practice as a general practitioner and, at the same time, obtained an appointment as an honorary demonstrator in anatomy at the University of Melbourne.20

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16   Ibid

17   Brett Chalmers,2018. ANU Aboriginal heritage Assessment Sullivans Creek & Heritage Trail, report prepared for ANU Heritage.

18   L.F. Fitzhardinge, ‘Old Canberra and district 1820-1910’, in H.L. White (ed.), Canberra: A Nation’s Capital, Canberra, ANZAAS, 1954, pp. 16, 29; L.F. Fitzhardinge, Old Canberra and the Search for a Capital, Canberra, CDHS, 1975, pp. 4-5; Lyall Gillespie, Canberra 1820-1913, Canberra, AGPS, 1991, pp. 8-9, 17, 21, 39, 266.

19   Gillespie, Canberra 1820-1913, pp. 278, 280, 289-90, plates 19, 24, 25; facsimile of Walter Burley Griffin’s design for federal capital, 1911, Clareville Press, Torrens, ACT.

20   Anon., ‘MacKenzie, Sir William Colin’, Australian Encyclopaedia, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1958, vol. 5, pp. 434-5; Monica MacCallum, ‘MacKenzie, Sir William Colin’, Australian Dictionary of Biography [hereafter ADB], vol. 10, p. 306.

Figure 2: Professor Sir Colin MacKenzie by William B. McInnes, 1928–1938 (National Museum of Australia)

Painting of Professor Sir Colin MacKenzie by William B. McInnes

According to MacKenzie’s own testimony, the origins of the Institute of Anatomy lay in the epidemic of infantile paralysis that afflicted Melbourne in 1908. Infantile paralysis was the classical form of poliomyelitis in which the virus invaded the spinal cord and caused weakness, paralysis and wasting of muscles, often with resulting deformity.; During a visit to Britain and the Continent in 1903–4, MacKenzie had studied orthopaedics, the treatment of deformities arising from disease or injury of the bones and joints. With the outbreak of the 1908 poliomyelitis epidemic, MacKenzie found his orthopaedic skills in demand from patients who wanted effective treatment. Basing his work on methods he had learned both in Australia and overseas, he gradually evolved his own unique technique for treating the disease. The treatment involved making use of the patient’s remaining muscle power to promote movement and minimise deformity.21

In the course of his clinical work, MacKenzie began to develop his own idiosyncratic theories about the scientific basis of muscle function and pathology. In his view, the pathological changes to tissue seen in such diseases as poliomyelitis could not be understood by comparison with tissue samples taken from humans who were apparently undiseased. This was because the human race, according to MacKenzie, had been physically corrupted ‘over centuries’ by alcohol, syphilis and other poisons, to such an extent that one could not reliably obtain from any one individual a sample of normal, pristine tissue. In like manner, valid comparisons could not be made with so-called ‘normal’ tissue from commonly-used laboratory animals – dogs, rabbits and guinea pigs – because they had been so denaturalised by domestication. MacKenzie believed instead that the complexities of the human body, and especially muscle function, could only be properly understood by studying the relevant anatomical parts in their simplest and purest form. Such parts were only to be found among the native Australian mammals which had lived in a natural, unpolluted environment for millions of years. As MacKenzie saw it, these mammals were the ‘key animals of the world’ in their potential for playing a crucial role in the solution of human muscle problems. From these somewhat esoteric beliefs, the Institute of Anatomy was later to acquire its distinctive architectural embellishments of figures of Australian fauna.22

As MacKenzie also believed that the native Australian mammals were doomed to extinction within a very short time, he began to assemble from 1912 a massive collection of dissected specimens of these animals. When war broke out in 1914, according to his own account, he realised that his collection could be of benefit to the treatment and rehabilitation of wounded soldiers. At the instigation of the distinguished Scottish anatomist, Sir Arthur Keith, MacKenzie decided to transfer his vast and unique collection to the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in England. The material was despatched overseas in 80 tins and eight tanks. MacKenzie himself proceeded to England in 1915, where he remained for approximately three years. During this time, he helped Keith catalogue specimens of war wounds and assisted in the editing and publication of textbooks on surgical anatomy and muscle function.23

On his return to Melbourne in 1918, MacKenzie was determined  to carry on with his orthopaedic work and with collecting specimens of native Australian mammals.  As there was no space available for him at the University of Melbourne, he purchased an eleven-room house at 612 St Kilda Road and rapidly began to fill it with his dissected specimens. Soon afterwards, in 1920, he obtained at a peppercorn rental from the Victorian government. This was a lease on an 80-acre tract of land at Badger Creek, Healesville, where he established a reserve for, as he put it, ‘live specimens’. The reserve is still in existence. MacKenzie formally registered the St Kilda Road property and the Badger Creek reserve under the title of ‘The Australian Institute of Anatomical Research’.24

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21   Professor Sir W. Colin MacKenzie, ‘Brief Resume of the History of Australian Institute of Anatomy, Canberra’, c. 1930, Commonwealth Record Series [hereafter CRS] A2644, item 70; MacCallum, ADB, vol. 10, p. 306; A.J. Proust, ‘Sir Colin MacKenzie and the Institute of Anatomy’, Medical Journal of Australia [hereafter MJA], 4 July 1994, pp. 60-1.

22   MacKenzie, ‘Brief Resume …’, c. 1930, CRS A2644, item 70; Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works [hereafter PWC], ‘Report together with Minutes of Evidence relating to the Proposed Construction of Buildings and Formation of Reservation at Canberra for the National Museum of Australian Zoology’, 1927, p. iii.

23   MacKenzie, ‘Brief Resume …’, c. 1930, CRS A2644, item 70; PWC, ‘Report … relating to the Proposed Construction of … the National Museum of Australian Zoology’, 1927, p. iii; Australian Encyclopaedia, vol. 5, p. 435.

24   MacKenzie, ‘Brief Resume …’, c. 1930, CRS A2644, item 70; PWC, ‘Report … relating to the Proposed Construction of … the National Museum of Australian Zoology’, 1927, p. iii; Australian Encyclopaedia, vol. 5, p. 435; MacCallum, ADB, vol. 10, p. 307.

In the ensuing years, MacKenzie received offers for his collection of dissections from overseas museums, including at least one substantial offer from an American institution. He refused, hoping instead that the Australian government would acquire his collection for the nation. It appears that, during the early 1920s, MacKenzie pressed the government to take this course of action, possibly using the overseas offers as a lever on the federal authorities. Whatever the case, by late 1922 the government had agreed, at least privately, to acquire the collection; the decision was announced prematurely in the British Medical Journal in January 1923. The Australian government duly announced its intentions in March, stating that it deplored the fact ‘that the Commonwealth had no central museum of specimens of its own’ and ‘that it would be wise before already rare specimens became extinct to secure specimens of them for such a collection …’ MacKenzie formally donated his collection to the nation, by way of the Minister for Home and Territories, Senator George Pearce, in June 1923.25

The donation came with conditions. Under the terms of the agreement with MacKenzie (dated August 1924), the Commonwealth undertook to erect buildings and enclosures in Canberra to house his collection of animals, both live and dead. For this purpose, it agreed to reserve one or more sites in the new federal capital. For the first three years from the date of the agreement – that is, until August 1927 – MacKenzie agreed to maintain the collections in Melbourne at his own expense; thereafter, all costs were to be met by the federal government. MacKenzie himself was to be appointed Director of the proposed museum, with the title of ‘Professor of Comparative Anatomy’ and an annual salary of

£600. He took up the appointment on 1 January 1924, preceding by eight months the formal signing of the agreement with the Commonwealth. On his becoming Director of the museum, MacKenzie was compelled to relinquish his lucrative orthopaedic practice in Melbourne.26

It seems quite certain that, in making the agreement with MacKenzie, the federal government did not fully comprehend or foresee what it was committing itself to. Clearly, the government expected that, by the end of the three-year period stipulated in the agreement, it would have buildings ready in Canberra for MacKenzie to occupy, although this was not actually what the agreement specified.27

Unfortunately, MacKenzie also interpreted the agreement in this way, a fact that later led to friction between himself and the government. As it was, the government was not well-placed in the period 1924-27 to erect a major museum building in Canberra or, for that matter, anywhere else. With its commitment to transferring the seat of power to the new federal territory, the government was already heavily engaged in a major building program in Canberra, notably the construction of Parliament House. Funds and labour were not readily available for the building of the proposed museum. The scale of the project, moreover, was rather greater than it first appeared, involving not just the construction of a museum building, but the erection of residences for MacKenzie and his staff who were to accompany him from Melbourne. In addition, it included the laying out of a sizeable reserve for his live specimens, complete with animal houses, enclosures and ponds of various kinds. The whole project promised to be quite an expensive undertaking.

It may be asked why the government decided to take on a task of this magnitude at such an inconvenient time. Certainly, the threatened loss overseas of a unique and irreplaceable collection of specimens of Australian fauna was a powerful motivating factor in the government’s initially agreeing to acquire and house MacKenzie’s collection. Indeed, the original title of the proposed institution, the ‘National Museum of Australian Zoology’, was probably a reflection of the government’s primary assessment of the collection’s value as a comprehensive assemblage of specimens of Australia’s native animals, as distinct from the collection’s supposed value to research on human health problems.

Beyond that assessment, however, the government had other considerations in mind. For one thing, it wanted to make Canberra not just the country’s administrative capital, but also the national centre for Australian culture, education and science. Virtually at the same time as he agreed on the Commonwealth’s behalf to acquire MacKenzie’s collection, Senator Pearce secured Cabinet approval for the building, at a cost of about £13,000 per annum, of an observatory on Mount Stromlo. The government was already committed to the establishment of a national library in Canberra and, rather more vaguely, to the eventual foundation of a university. With institutions of this character destined for Canberra, it was singularly appropriate that the national capital should also house the nation’s foremost collection of specimens of native animals. As the British Medical Journal pointed out in hailing the government’s decision to establish a museum of Australian zoology, ‘the new Commonwealth Capital at Canberra … will then become the world’s centre for the study of

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25   Australian Encyclopaedia, vol. 5, p. 435; MacCallum, ADB, vol. 10, p. 307; minute, MacKenzie to Acting Prime Minister, 5 November 1930; and MacKenzie, ‘Brief Resume …’, c. 1930, CRS A2644, item 70; British Medical Journal, 17 January 1923; information from Monica MacCallum, Dept of the History and Philosophy of Science, University of Melbourne.

26   ‘Zoological Museum Agreement Act 1924’, CRS A6269, item E1/30/51; MacKenzie, ‘Brief Resume …’, c. 1930, CRS A2644, item 70.

27   Memo, Home and Territories Dept, ‘Article in Melbourne “Age” of 22/7/27, regarding the delay in constructing the buildings for the National Museum of Australian Zoology at Canberra’, 25 February 1927, CRS A431, item 59/450.

Australian fauna.’28

The other main consideration that the government had in mind was the collection’s potential research value in helping to improve the health of Australia’s people. The nation’s health was of unusual concern to the Australian government and to community leaders in this period. This concern was in large measure born of an acute awareness of Australia’s small population and hence of the continent’s vulnerability to foreign invasion. There was a very widespread belief that national security depended on the maintenance of a high standard of health and fitness in the nation’s small population. During the war years, the nation had been shocked by revelations of the extent to which syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases were rampant in the community, and by the generally poor standard of national health revealed in the rejection rate for army recruits.

It was partly as a result of these concerns that the Commonwealth government, in March 1921, had established a federal Department of Health under Dr J.H.L. Cumpston, an individual who was later to have a major influence on the Institute of Anatomy. In 1924, the government also set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the state of the nation’s health. In the meantime, Walter Massy Greene, the Minister for Defence, had added the new health portfolio to his responsibilities, a remarkable combination of ministries that has only ever been repeated once in Australia’s history, and by Sir Neville Howse later in the same decade. The combination was an expression at the highest administrative level of the relationship the government of the day saw between the nation’s health and its security.29

In this climate of anxiety about the health of the Australian people, MacKenzie’s belief in his collection’s value to the understanding and treatment of diseases that particularly affected children was especially welcome. Thus, it is probably highly significant that the person to whom MacKenzie made the offer of his material was Senator Pearce. Pearce had been Minister for Defence for the duration of the war and, much more than most, would have appreciated the need to improve the nation’s health for security reasons. The potential for Mackenzie’s collection to serve this purpose would have not have escaped his attention.

2.7     Sites and Plans

Some time after the Act creating the National Museum of Australian Zoology received formal assent and in October 1924, MacKenzie visited Canberra to select sites for the museum and for the reserve for his live specimens. For the museum, he fixed upon a semicircular plot of land of about 5.75 acres in extent, situated close to the reserve for the city’s proposed university. The choice of location was not accidental: it was envisaged that the zoological museum would eventually form part of the university campus. The selection of a site for a reserve for MacKenzie’s live animals proved a little more problematic, but eventually MacKenzie settled on an 80-acre site about three kilometres west of the city at Westridge on the southern side of the Molonglo. All interested parties had concurred in the selection of both sites by mid-1925, though C.S. Daley, then Acting Secretary of the Federal Capital Commission [FCC], pointed out that Griffin had specified a site for zoological gardens for the city on the northern side of the Molonglo, near proposed

botanical gardens, an aquarium and various museums and galleries. The Commission, nevertheless, had no real objection to MacKenzie establishing another zoo for his own research purposes.30

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28   Jim Gibbney, Canberra 1913-1953, Canberra, AGPS, 1988, pp. 73, 159, 167, 258; British Medical Journal, 17 January 1923.

29   Dennis Shoesmith, ‘“Nature’s Law”: the venereal disease debate, Melbourne 1918-19’, ANU Historical Journal, vol. 9, December 1972, pp. 19-23; Michael Roe, ‘The establishment of the Australian Department of Health: its background and significance’, Historical Studies, vol. 17, 1976, pp. 176-92.

30   Minute, C.S. Daley to Secretary, Home and Territories Department, 12 June 1925, CRS A431, item 59/450; PWC, ‘Report … relating to the Proposed Construction of … the National Museum of Australian Zoology’, 1927, pp. iv, vi; Second Annual Report of the Federal Capital Commission for the period ended 30th June, 1926, p. 9.

Figure 3: Early site of Institute of Anatomy, Acton, Mildenhall Collection 1901–1948 (National Library of Australia, 2018)

Early site of Institute of Anatomy, Acton.

Figure 4: Site of the Institute of Anatomy with notice board for the National Museum, 1927 (National Archives of Australia, 2018)

Site of the Institute of Anatomy with notice board for the National Museum

In July 1925, the Department of Works and Railways was given responsibility for preparing, in consultation with MacKenzie, preliminary plans and cost estimates for the project. MacKenzie himself produced sketch plans in March 1926 for the Department’s architects to work with. A.S. Robertson, a departmental architect, began to work up detailed plans and specifications, completing them by mid-1926. At this point, the Chief Commissioner of the FCC, Sir John Butters, who was probably being pressed by MacKenzie for an early start to the building program, informed the Minister for Home Territories that the FCC could not possibly embark on the work until other more urgent projects had been completed. Taking Butters’s advice, federal Cabinet decided in September to defer work on the museum.31

Figure 5: Site plan showing the entrance from both McCoy Circuit and Liversidge Street, 1925 (NFSA 2018)

Site plan showing the entrance from both McCoy Circuit and Liversidge Street

While Butters was informing the government of the FCC’s inability to start work on the museum,he was also beginning to have misgivings about the design that the Department of Works and Railways had produced for the building. He raised with the Minister for Home and Territories ‘the general question of the policy to be adopted in carrying out buildings such as this, which I hope will be of a somewhat monumental character.’ One way to achieve the character he desired for the building was, as he pointed out to the Minister, to hold a design competition, the sort of approach favoured by the Federal Institute of Architects. But while such competitions had already provided an economic bonanza for certain architects, it had proven a very expensive exercise for the federal government. The alternative was to have government architects prepare the designs for Canberra’s buildings. Butters had no great faith in this method, however, as he believed that there was a ‘danger of monotony’ appearing in the designs.32

Butters soon enlarged on his views before the Public Works Committee. Because the FCC had indicated to the government that it could not even properly consider the current proposals for the museum until April 1927 at the earliest, the government decided as a time- saving measure in February that the Public Works Committee should examine the plans drawn up by Robertson of the Works and Railways Department. Robertson’s scheme was for a single-storey museum building surrounded by a gallery twelve to fifteen feet wide, with an entrance from what is now Liversidge Street. The project was to include a small lecture theatre, and single- storey administration and research blocks were to be placed at the front and sides of the museum building at its McCoy Circuit end, creating a T-shaped complex. There was to be another entrance from McCoy Circuit. The buildings were to be built of brick or concrete, with part of the exterior of the complex faced with ‘some sort of stone’.33

Appearing before the Committee to give evidence, Butters savaged the Works and Railways’ design. He stated that the museum, occupying as it did a dominant position in the city and located near the proposed university, should be ‘of a permanent and impressive character’. He strongly opposed the Works and Railways’ proposal to construct the building in brick and concrete, recommending that the whole building be redesigned ‘to give it a more imposing appearance’. In the face of Butters’s forcefully expressed opinions, the Committee determined on some major design changes for the building. Acting on suggestions put forward by Butters, and with MacKenzie’s concurrence, the Committee recommended that the two wings of the building be

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31   Memo, ‘Construction of Buildings for National Museum of Australian Zoology at Canberra. Resumé of Action taken’, February 1927; and minute, J.H. Butters to Minister for Home and Territories, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, 14 September 1928, p. 1, CRS A431, item 59/450; memo, A.S. Robertson, ‘Scheme for National Museum of Zoology, Canberra. Notes to Accompany Drawings’, 21 October 1927, CRS A6269, item E1/30/51.

32   Minute, Butters to Minister for Home and Territories, ‘National Museum of Zoology and Zoological Park’, 14 July 1926, CRS A6269, item E1/30/51.

33   Minute, Butters to Minister for Home and Territories, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, 14 September 1928, pp. 1-2, CRS A431, item 59/450; PWC, ‘Report … relating to the Proposed Construction of … the National Museum of Australian Zoology’, 1927, p. iv.

shortened and made two storeys high. This alteration, the Committee felt, would provide the same floor space at the same cost, but would enhance the design of the structure. The Committee also proposed that the front of the lecture theatre be faced with Fairy Meadow limestone and that the rest of the building be built of high quality Canberra bricks, with base mouldings and other architectural embellishments also rendered in Fairy Meadow limestone. By way of ‘excellent examples’ of what it wished to achieve by this mixture of brickwork and stone, the Committee cited college buildings in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and even Cardinal Wolsey’s Hampton Court Palace in England. The mixture would also, the Committee hoped, keep costs down. As it was, the total cost estimate for the project, including the development of the animal reserve and the construction of three residences, amounted to £87,080.34

Following the report of the Public Works Committee, Parliament voted unanimously on 24 March 1927 to proceed with the construction of the museum. The FCC, however, was still too heavily engaged in other projects to undertake the work and, as well, did not have on its staff at the time what it considered a ‘first class designing architect’ to draw up the new plans required for the building. Just as significantly, Butters, though he had won some important changes from the Committee, was still far from satisfied with the design. He felt that ‘the layout of the building left much to be desired’ and that ‘a building with only a comparatively small stone feature in the front and the rest of plain brick work was losing a valuable opportunity in Canberra from an architectural point of view.’ Butters was particularly unhappy with the proposed width of the museum (66 feet) and of its surrounding gallery. He wanted both

reduced, but especially the gallery, an alteration that he hoped would allow the ‘objectionable columns’ to be eliminated. The entrances to the museum also bothered him, as he considered that they lacked ‘architectural character’. As an example of the sort of design he had in mind, he put on file an article dealing with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.35

The problem of a lack of a top-class designing architect, as the FCC saw it, was overcome in November 1927 when Walter Hayward Morris, just returned from a visit overseas, was appointed as the FCC’s Principal Assisting Designing Architect. Butters immediately assigned him, as his first job with the Commission, to the museum project. Before the month was out, Morris, armed with the scheme approved by the Public Works Committee and with Butters’s criticisms of it, was dispatched to Melbourne to discuss the new proposals with MacKenzie. MacKenzie readily agreed to Butters’s proposals to reduce the size of the museum and to eliminate one of the two entrances. This latter change, in fact, allowed the inclusion in the design of a small research room, a literature room and a room for the hall attendant. But MacKenzie also proposed some alterations of his own. These were: the provision of a small strong room, a basement workshop, a waiting room next to the Director’s office and an elevator from the basement to the first floor; an increase in the size of the lecture theatre to accommodate an audience of 150 as against 114; the combining of the spaces reserved for the artist and photographer into one room and the creation of a separate dark room; and the omission of all windows and addition of a gallery to the library to allow greater wall space for shelving and to allow for ‘the possibility of lighting from the roof’.

At Morris’s suggestion, MacKenzie later sent him five sketches of Australian animals – the kangaroo, koala, echidna, platypus and reptiles – to serve as models for Art Deco figures that Morris had in mind for the exterior of the building.36

It is extremely likely that Morris’s inspiration to adorn the exterior of the building with fauna and flora figures derived from the Sydney Technical College at Ultimo in Sydney. Built in 1891–93, the building’s exterior featured sandstone sculptures of native Australian animals and plants. The use of such distinctively Australian ornamentations was strongly influenced by the French- born artist Lucien Henry, who was a teacher at the temporary premises the college occupied before the Ultimo building was erected. Henry was a fervent advocate of the incorporation of nationalist elements such as representations of native fauna and flora in local art and architecture.

The actual precedent for ornamenting the exterior of buildings with figures of animals and plants was set by the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, which opened in 1881. Drawings of the building by its architect, Alfred Waterhouse, had been displayed at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879 where they excited much local interest and admiration, notably from Henry. When Morris came to design the Institute of Anatomy decades later, he could scarcely have been unaware of the sculptures of Australian animals and plants that graced the exterior of Sydney Technical College as it was, of course, the place where he had studied architecture and where, moreover, he had won the Kemp Memorial Medal named in honour of its architect, William Edmund Kemp.37

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34   PWC, ‘Report … relating to the Proposed Construction of … the National Museum of Australian Zoology’, 1927, pp. v, vi, vii.

35   Third Annual Report of the Federal Capital Commission for the Year ended 30th June, 1927, p. 12; MacKenzie, ‘Brief Resume …’, c. 1930, CRS A2644, item 70; minute, Butters to Minister for Home and Territories, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, 14 September 1928, p. 2, CRS A431, item 59/450; extract from the Literary Digest, 16 April 1927, on the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in CRS A6269, item E1/30/51.

36   Minute, Butters to Minister for Home and Territories, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, 14 September 1928, pp. 2-3, CRS A431, item 59/450; letter, MacKenzie to W. Hayward Morris, 16 July 1928, CRS A6269, item E1/30/51.

37   http://sydneytafe.libguides.com/SydneyTAFEHeritage/ArchitectureDesign; Joan Kerr, ‘The architecture of scientific Sydney’, Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, vol. 118, parts 3 and 4, March 1986, p. 190; Kirsten Orr, ‘The realisation of the Sydney Technical College and Technological Museum, 1878-92: aspects of their cultural significance’, Fabrications, vol. 17, no. 1, 2007, pp. 46-67 (especially pp. 52-4 and 57-60).

While Morris worked on detailed plans and specifications for the revised design, MacKenzie’s patience with the government was wearing thin. In January 1928, he wrote to Howse, who was a Minister without portfolio in the Cabinet and the Australian Army’s former Director of Medical Services in France during World War I. MacKenzie pointed out to him the importance of his research to military medicine and urged the government to get on with the building of the museum. The representations to Howse brought an immediate response. Howse took the matter to Cabinet the same month and secured its approval for the construction of the museum to be given top priority; the FCC was duly instructed to regard the building of the museum as ‘of urgent importance’. Cabinet agreed as well to transfer responsibility for the museum from the Department of Home and Territories to the Department of Health, both of which portfolios Howse was about to take over. The transfer was effected on 1 February. Finally, Cabinet also gave Howse leave to consider a change of name for the institution. It was undoubtedly Howse’s role in getting the project moving that led to the erection of the portrait-in-relief of him that still exists in the southern museum hall.38

Even before the transfer to the Department of Health took place, the need for a change in the institution’s name was becoming evident. Apart from his zoological specimens, MacKenzie was accumulating a substantial collection of Aboriginal skeletal remains. As MacKenzie intended to house this material in his museum, the name ‘Zoological Museum’

was clearly no longer appropriate. In August 1928, MacKenzie and the government signed an agreement changing the name to the ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’. The change was formalised in the Australian Institute of Anatomy Agreement Act of 1931.39

The name change was appropriate for another reason as well. In 1926, the government had acquired the extensive ethnological collection that had been assembled by Dr Horne and his niece Miss Bowie, and soon afterwards had been promised the Edmund Milne ethnological collection of Australian Aboriginal material which was the largest private collection of its type in the world. With the acquisition of these two collections, the Australian government found itself under an obligation to provide proper museum accommodation for them.

This need to house the collections soon became bound up with proposals to establish a National Museum in Canberra. In September 1927, federal Cabinet affirmed the principle of establishing such a museum, but decided not to proceed with it immediately. A year later, a government committee that had been appointed to consider the question of the museum reported that the need for a national museum was, in its opinion, ‘not great’, largely because excellent museums already existed in each of the Australian states. During its deliberations, however, the committee suggested that the Institute of Anatomy might, in time, be constituted as the first unit of the proposed National Museum. In the meantime, there remained the problem of providing suitable accommodation for the Horne-Bowie

and Milne collections. The Institute of Anatomy was an obvious location and, in this way, the building came to be a repository for ethnological material, in addition to its anatomical specimens. It was probably this new ethnological aspect to the Institute’s functions that led to the inclusion of the Aboriginal-style motifs that adorn the exterior of the building.40

2.8  The Final Design and Construction

Morris completed his plans for the building in mid-1928, at which point Butters submitted them for review, along with the two earlier schemes devised by Robertson and the Public Works Committee, to the Committee of Public Taste. This was a body of five leading Australian architects chaired by G.H. Godsell. On examining the various plans, the committee found that it could not recommend the Robertson or Public Works Committee schemes, but that Morris’s design was acceptable with some alteration. The substance of the desired alteration was the conversion of the building from a T-shaped to a U-shaped structure, with provision for eventually closing in the end of the ‘U’ to create an internal quadrangle. MacKenzie, when told of the proposed alteration, would not agree to it at all, even though the new U-shape would give him two museum halls instead of one. As the Committee of Public Taste would not budge on the issue, Butters organised a meeting involving MacKenzie, Morris and the committee, and here they succeeded in talking MacKenzie around to the idea.41

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38   ‘Copy of letter’ (MacKenzie to Sir Neville Howse), January 1928; and minute, Butters to Minister for Home and Territories, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, 14 September 1928, p. 2, CRS A431, item 59/450; Cabinet Agenda No. 72, ‘National Museum of Australian Zoology’, 18 January 1928; and letter, Acting Secretary, Dept of Home and Territories to Director General, Dept of Health, 31 January 1928, CRS A1928, item 695/2.

39   Letter, Claude Nevins to MacKenzie, 10 June 1927, CRS A1, item 27/20249; indenture between the Commonwealth of Australia and William Colin MacKenzie, 16 August 1928, CRS A432, item 1931/1837; ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy Agreement Act 1931’, CRS A2863, item 31/44. See also CRS A1, item 29/1896.

40   Dr Helen Wurm, ‘The Institute of Anatomy Ethnological Collections’, address to residential school entitled ‘Canberra – Our National Capital’, ANU, Canberra, 24-30 May 1964, p. 2; minute, MacKenzie to Acting Prime Minister, 5 November 1930, CRS A2644, item 70; Minister for Home and Territories, Cabinet Agenda, ‘Establishment of National Museum at Canberra’, 16 April 1928, CRS A1, item 32/514; ‘Report of Committee of Enquiry appointed to advise on the General Question of a National Museum at Canberra’, October 1928, pp. 2-5, CRS A485, item AJ120/6.

41   ‘Notes taken at the first meeting of the Committee of Public Taste in Sydney’, 1928, CRS A6269, item E1/30/51; minute, Butters to Minister for Home and Territories, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, 14 September 1928, pp. 1-2, CRS A431, item 59/450.

Figure 6: Australian Institute of Anatomy by W. Heyward Morris, 1929 (National Library of Australia 2018)

Drawing of Australian Institute of Anatomy by W. Heyward Morris

All now seemed set fair for work at last to commence on the project. But when, in early September 1928, the agreed-upon plans were presented to the Public Works Committee for its formal endorsement, the committee failed to consider the matter; it then broke up for the year and was not scheduled to re-convene until the following February or March. The first that Butters or apparently MacKenzie heard of this was when they read about it in the newspapers. Infuriated, MacKenzie promptly contacted Butters and warned him darkly that, because of the long delay with the project, he was seriously re-considering his position. Butters, deeply embarrassed by the incident, composed a long memorandum to his Minister, setting out the project’s history and requesting him to bypass the Public Works Committee by moving a motion as soon as possible in Parliament to the effect that the project proceed according to the latest revised set of plans.

The Minister did not oblige. Butters, MacKenzie and Morris thus had to cool their heels until the Public Works Committee met again early the following year. MacKenzie, for his part, may not have been inclined to press the issue any further at this time. Major events in his life were in prospect. The first occurred on 22 December 1928 when, at the age of 51, he married Dr Winifred Smith in Melbourne. The second was that the possibility of a knighthood was in the wind for him; the honour was duly conferred on him in June 1929.42

The plans for the Institute were eventually considered by the Public Works Committee in March 1929 and approved with some minor changes. Confident of the outcome, the FCC had already called for tenders for the construction work, a move of which the Committee took a very dim view. The budget for the building program was set at £96,306. Additional sums had previously been allocated: of £14,080 for development of the

zoological reserve; and £7,000 for construction of the Director’s residence and a residence each at the zoological reserve for the curator and caretaker. The contract for building the Institute was won by the Canberra firm of Simmie and Company. Building work commenced on 8 April 1929, with a scheduled date of completion of mid-April 1930. The executive architect for the project was Robert Casboulte. Along with the Black Mountain laboratories for the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Institute was one of the last two projects commenced by the FCC in Canberra.43

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42   Minute, Butters to Minister for Home and Territories, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, 14 September 1928, CRS A431, item 59/450; MacCallum,

ADB, vol. 10, p. 307; Sydney Morning Herald, 22 June 1929.

43   PWC, ‘Report together with Minutes of Evidence relating to the Proposed Construction of Buildings for the Institute of Anatomy, at Canberra’, 1929, pp. vi, ix; and minute, Executive Architect to Assistant Secretary, ‘Institute of Anatomy’, 3 April 1929, CRS CT86, item 229; contract and building specifications, CRS 86, item 408; Gibbney, Canberra 1913-1953, p. 161.

Figure 7: Excavating Institute of Anatomy, Mildenhall Collection 1901–1948 (National Library of Australia, 2018)

Excavating Institute of Anatomy

Four months after work commenced on the Institute building, Cabinet approved the construction of the Director’s residence at a cost of £3,900. In order to keep the costs of construction down, it had previously been decided to shave £800 off the budget for the residence by doing away with a proposed garden court, pergola and covered way. Despite these economies, all of the tenders received for the erection of the residence were too high. After further economies had been made by some unspecified alterations to the plans, three of the previous tenderers were invited to re-submit.

The contract was eventually awarded in January 1930 to Ernest Spendelove, whose quote of £3,547 for the job was the lowest. Spendelove started work on the residence almost immediately and, with the exception of some minor adjustments, completed it in August 1930.44

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44   See CRS A292, item C261.

Figure 8: Australian Institute of Anatomy – footings under construction. McCoy Circuit45, Acton, 1929 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy – footings under construction. McCoy Circuit, Acton.

Figure 9: Australian Institute of Anatomy – foundations. McCoy Circuit, Acton, 1929 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy - foundations. McCoy Circuit, Acton.

45   The National Archives of Australia states the address of this and following photographs as McCoy Circle, which we believe to be McCoy Circuit and have changed it in every instance to reflect the current address.

Figure 10: Australian Institute of Anatomy – under construction. McCoy Circuit, Acton, 1930 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy - under construction. McCoy Circuit, Acton.

Figure 11: Australian Institute of Anatomy – under construction, external facing being fitted. McCoy Circuit, Acton, 1930 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy - under construction, external facing being fitted. McCoy Circuit, Acton.

Figure 12: Australian Institute of Anatomy – main Exhibition Hall under construction. McCoy Circuit, Acton, 1930 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy - main Exhibition Hall under construction. McCoy Circuit, Acton.

Figure 13: Australian Institute of Anatomy – opening. 1929 (NFSA 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy - opening.

At the same time that the go-ahead had been given, in August 1929, for construction of the Director’s residence, Cabinet decided that the cottages for the curator and the groundsman at MacKenzie’s zoological reserve at Westridge would not be built. Like any other government employees, these staff members of the Institute would have to seek accommodation in whatever government housing was

available in Canberra. As for the zoo itself, Cabinet decided that it should proceed. Already, the government foresters had carried out some plantings in the area and some additional preliminary work was now undertaken. With the onset of the Depression, however, the hefty expenditure on the project could no longer be justified. The project was deferred in April 1930, never to be resumed. For some years later

in the 1930s, the Institute housed a number of animals in various cages and enclosures in the grounds of the Canberra Hospital. By 1939, a small reserve for the live animals had been acquired about 65 kilometres from Canberra and stocked with six koalas brought from Victoria.46

It is recorded that a tooth of Diprotodon was uncovered during excavation for the building.47

Figure 14: Australian Institute of Anatomy – completed. McCoy Circuit, Acton, 1930 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy - completed. McCoy Circuit, Acton.

46   Memo, J.H. Cumpston, 5 August 1929, CRS A6269, item E1/29/1341; memo, Cumpston, 5 August 1929; and minute, P.E. Deane, Secretary, Dept of Home Affairs to Secretary, FCC, 11 April 1930, CRS A6272, item E251; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st, 1934 to June 30th, 1935’, p. 1, CRS A1928, item 695/17; anon., ‘The Australian Institute of Anatomy’, Australian Journal of Science [hereafter AJS], vol. 2, no. 1, 21 August 1939, p. 4.

47   https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1012270?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FC%2Ftitle%2F11%2F1929%2 F08%2F27%2Fpage%2F24451%2Farticle%2F1012270#

Figure 15: Australian Institute of Anatomy – completed. McCoy Circuit, Acton, 1930 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy - completed. McCoy Circuit, Acton.

Figure 16: Residence for Head of Australian Institute of Anatomy, 192748 (National Library of Australia 2018)

Residence for Head of Australian Institute of Anatomy

48   https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/255259509Note: we believe this date is incorrect as the building was not constructed until 1931 and the landscape is too mature.

The first parts of the Institute, the northern and southern basements, were ready for occupation in January 1930, though the actual occupation did not take place until after mid-February because of lingering dampness in both areas. Completion of the construction phase eventually occurred either towards the end of the year or in the first months of 1931; fitting out of the building was to drag on for several more years. Erected on reinforced concrete foundations, the new building consisted of two sections, an administrative section at the front and two museum blocks at the rear. The museum blocks were ‘constructed with steel frame enclosed in concrete and filled in with brickwork faced with freestone’; the administrative section was simply built of bricks and faced with freestone. The roofs of the museum blocks were constructed of steel girders, while the administrative section had a flat roof made of reinforced concrete and covered with bituminous felt and gravel. Floors made of jarrah or tallow were provided in the museums, their galleries and certain parts of the administration block. All of the joinery in the Institute – doors, bookcases, etc – consisted of black bean or cedar. Double-glazed windows were installed in the museum blocks and the window-frames throughout the building were of steel or bronze.49

The museum blocks were essentially large halls with basements underneath, but the administration block was a far more complex structure internally. It consisted of:

Basement containing osteology room, boiler room, fan rooms, lavatory, strong room, and elevator over storage space …

Ground floor containing entrance hall with attendant’s booth, and stall, anthropology room [northern side facing quadrangle], histology room [northern side at front], director’s room [southern side at front], secretary’s room and waiting room [both southern side], research room [southern side], lavatories, library and lecture room, two staircases and elevator connecting with upper floor …

First floor containing dissection room, osteology room, artist’s and photographer’s room with dark room, six research rooms, cinema projection and rewinding rooms … 50

The new building exhibited a number of special external and internal features that were intended to give it the impressive character that Butters had wanted for it. On the outside, the walls were faced with Hawkesbury sandstone that had been quarried near Gosford, NSW. This stone facing rose from a 30-centimetre-wide panel of Tarana red granite at the base. Morris and Casboulte had deliberately chosen this type of granite for its ‘warmer colour-effect’, in preference to the ‘colder greys’ of more common types of granite. Granite was also used in the construction of the front steps. Internally, black marble that

had been obtained from a quarry about two hundred metres away on Acton Flats was used in the tiling and on the pilasters of the foyer. The Institute is the only building that contains this type of marble, as the Acton quarry was barely able to provide sufficient stone before it was exhausted.51

The principal design motif for the interior of the building was the chevron, a signature Art Deco feature. This motif was employed in the designs of air bricks, ventilators, electric light fittings and architraves, as well as in the pattern of paving stones on the floor of the foyer. In April 1949, the then Director of the Institute, Dr Frederick W. Clements, described the chevron motif as a ‘conventionalised boomerang’. It is not clear whether this was his own interpretation of the chevron motif or whether he had derived this information either directly or indirectly from Morris. Unfortunately, Morris was not much given to providing explanations for his design decisions.52

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49   Minute, MacKenzie to Director-General of Health, 17 January 1930, CRS A1928, item 695/3 Section 1; R.P. Stone, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, Australian Encyclopaedia, vol. 1, p. 212; Fifth Annual Report of the Federal Capital Commission for the Year ended 30th June, 1929, Appendix D, ‘Report of Architects Department’ by T.R. Casboulte; PWC, ‘Report together with Minutes of Evidence relating to the Proposed Construction of Buildings for the Institute of Anatomy, at Canberra’, 1929, pp. v, viii, CRS C86, item 229; Dr Frederick W. Clements, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, April 1949, CRS A2644, item 70. See also annual reports of the Institute of Anatomy 1931-9, CRS A1928, item 695/17.

50   PWC, ‘Report together with Minutes of Evidence relating to the Proposed Construction of Buildings for the Institute of Anatomy, at Canberra’, 1929, p. v, CRS C86, item 229.

51   Clements, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, April 1949; and minute, E.H. Hipsley, to Director-General of Health, ‘Description of Building’,

5 December 1949, CRS A2644, item 70; Stone, Australian Encyclopaedia, vol. 1, p. 213; minute, Daley, Secretary, FCC to Secretary, Dept of Home Affairs, 31 May 1929, CRS A431, item 59/450; E.H. Hipsley, ‘Radio Script: Address Children’s Hour 2CA’, 20 June 1949, CRS A1658, item 151/1/1 part 1; NFSA information sheet, ‘The Building of the National Film and Sound Archive’, c. 1994.

52   Clements, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, April 1949; and minute, Hipsley, to Director-General of Health, ‘Description of Building’,

5 December 1949, CRS A2644, item 70; architectural drawing, ‘Institute of Anatomy: entrance to museums’, 10 January 1929, CRS A2505, item AF129.

Figure 17: Proposed Art Deco design features to surround the doors leading to the museums and courtyard, January 1929 (National Archives of Australia)

Proposed Art Deco design features to surround the doors leading to the museums and courtyard

The decorative skylight over the foyer features the figure of a platypus in stained Luxfer glass. The reason that this animal was given such prominence in the Institute’s scheme of interior decoration was that, in MacKenzie’s scheme of things, the platypus was the link between mammal, bird and reptile. Displayed on the walls of foyer are twelve face masks of distinguished medical scientists, including interestingly one of the French biologist Jean Lamarck, the foremost proponent of the by-then largely discredited theory of the inheritance

of acquired characteristics. The face masks were erected at MacKenzie’s instigation during the 1930s.53

The double entrance doors to the museums and courtyard were supposed to have been surrounded by elaborate Art Deco designs including, above the door, a large stylised representation of what appears to be a grey-headed flying fox (or bat). But these decorative details were never proceeded with, probably for reasons of economy. Other interior decorative features that were carried through include,

on the walls of the two museum blocks, plaques carrying moulded figures of the wombat, tree kangaroo, koala, kookaburra and platypus. Attached to the walls facing onto the courtyard are additional plaques featuring the face of the wombat. Around the front door appears a repeated motif carved in stone of a frilled lizard with its mouth open. Also carved in stone at the top of the columns at the entrance to the building are goannas among ferns and waratahs.54

Figure 18: Proposed Art Deco design features to surround the doors leading to the museums and courtyard, January 1929 (National Archives of Australia)

Proposed Art Deco features to surround the doors leading to the museums and courtyard

53   Clements, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, April 1949; and minute, Hipsley, to Director-General of Health, ‘Description of Building’,

5 December 1949, CRS A2644, item 70; Hipsley, ‘Radio Script: Address Children’s Hour 2CA’, 20 June 1949, CRS A1658, item 151/1/1 part 1; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st, 1934 to June 30th, 1935’, pp. 1-2, CRS A1928, item 695/17.

54   Stone, Australian Encyclopaedia, vol. 1, p. 213; NFSA information sheet, ‘The Building of the National Film and Sound Archive’; minute, Hipsley, to Director-General of Health, ‘Description of Building’, 5 December 1949, CRS A2644, item 70.

Figure 19: Delegates to a cancer conference in front of the Australian Institute of Anatomy, McCoy Circuit, Acton, 1933 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Delegates to a cancer conference in front of the Australian Institute of Anatomy

2.9  The MacKenzie Period 1930–1937

MacKenzie and his wife took up permanent residence in Canberra in 1930, moving into the just-completed Director’s residence in August. From the outset, MacKenzie and his loyal staff who had accompanied him from Melbourne were heavily engaged at the Institute in the time-consuming tasks of unpacking the vast quantity of specimens he had accumulated, cataloguing them and arranging them for display. The northern museum block was devoted to displays of applied anatomy, mainly comprising specimens of Australian fauna,

while the southern museum housed osteological exhibits, including casts of some famous prehistoric skulls. Ethnological material was consigned to the basement under the southern museum block where, for the most part, it was to languish for many years in the crates in which it had arrived at the Institute.55

As early as mid-1932, MacKenzie felt that the Institute had progressed to such a degree that it could ‘be regarded as the leading Institute in the Pacific for the study of comparative anatomy in its relation to a correct understanding of human health and disease.’ Scientists from around the country and overseas

were visiting it, he claimed, to learn about the latest developments in comparative anatomy. In January 1932, the Berlei company had even sent its ‘anatomical designer’ to the Institute to take an advanced course in applied anatomy. Tourists also flocked to the Institute. In the financial year 1933-4, the Institute recorded a total of 8,750 visitors, a good number when it is considered that children of sixteen years and younger were not admitted. The public opening hours for the Institute were 9.00-4.30 on weekdays and 9.00-11.00 on Saturdays.56

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55   A.J. Proust, History of Medicine in Canberra and Queanbeyan and their Hospitals, Gundaroo, Brolga Press, 1994, p. 41; ‘Report of the Director. Australian Institute of Anatomy. 1st July, 1931-30th June, 1932’, p. 1; and ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy. July 1st 1932-June 30th 1933’, p. 1, CRS A1928, item 695/17; Wurm, ‘The Institute of Anatomy Ethnological Collections’, p. 3; AJS, vol. 2, no. 1, p. 3.

56   ‘Report of the Director. Australian Institute of Anatomy. 1st July, 1931-30th June, 1932’, pp. 3-4; and ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st 1933 to June 30th 1934’, p. 2, CRS A1928, item 695/17.

From the time of its opening, the Institute also rapidly became a focus for the scientific, cultural and educational life of the national capital. The lecture theatre was extensively used for lectures on such diverse subjects as archaeology, architecture, art, economics, history, international affairs, politics, psychology, religion and veterinary science. From about mid-1930, the Canberra University College conducted its classes in the Institute until lack of space forced it to transfer them to the Hotel Acton in May 1935. Australia’s Third Annual Cancer Conference was held in the building in March 1932 and thereafter succeeding conferences were held there each year during the 1930s. The Royal Society of Australia, of which MacKenzie was the second president, conducted its regular monthly meetings in the building from 1932 onward. From the early 1930s, the Institute was the venue for readings and performances by the Canberra Repertory Society and by Canberra’s Arts and Literature Society. These continued until 1944 when Cumpston put a stop to them on the grounds that they were not fitting activities to be held in a scientific institution.57

A series of endowed lectures contributed to the intellectual life of the Institute. These were, in the order in which they were established:

May 1928: The Halford Oration. An annual lecture, endowed by the Halford family, to honour the memory of the late Professor G.B. Halford who held the Chair of Anatomy and Physiology at the University of Melbourne from 1862 to 1907;

August 1928: The Anne MacKenzie Oration. An annual lecture dealing with preventive medicine and the history of human development, endowed by Professor Sir Colin MacKenzie58

in honour of his mother;

July 1930: The Kendall Lecture. A triennial lecture on veterinary science, endowed by the Kendall family in honour of Dr W.T. Kendall, one of the founders of this discipline in Australia;

January 1932: The George Ernest Morrison Lecture in Ethnology. An annual lecture endowed by the Chinese community in Australia and aimed at stimulating

Australian interest in China;

May 1933: The Charles MacKay Lecture. An annual lecture on the history of medicine, endowed by Miss C. MacKenzie in memory of her grandfather.59

Further donations and acquisitions of material steadily expanded the scope and enhanced the standing of the Institute. The new material acquired included:

By 1930: the Burrell Collection, showing all stages in the life cycle of the platypus.

By 1930: a collection of Aboriginal skeletal material from southern Victoria and the Murray River, presented by Murray Black of Gippsland. In the ensuing years, the indefatigable Mr Black sent further collections of Aboriginal skeletons he had pillaged from traditional burial grounds in Victoria and New South Wales.

By 1930: a collection of Aboriginal skeletal material from the Murray River, presented by Dr Nankivell of Kerang, Victoria.

November 1930: the Edmund Milne Collection of ethnographic material, which had hitherto been housed in premises in Ryde, Sydney.

1931: two skeletons, a male and a female, of North American Indians, presented by Harvard University.

1933: a collection of almost 250 specimens presented by Professor Scott of Harvard University’s Museum of Ethnology and comprising a representative sample of the archaeology of the United States.

1933: a collection of 410 items sent by the Ribault Ethnological Museum.

1933: a collection of gall stones donated by Dr Cleaver Woods of Albury.

1934: a vast collection of Papuan ethnological and osteological material donated by Sir Hubert Murray, former Lieutenant- Governor of Papua.

1934: the late Herbert Basedow’s collection of Aboriginal material was acquired by purchase, through the Prime Minister’s Department.

1934: The Department of Defence donated a collection of pathological specimens from World War I.

August 1934: Sir Raphael Cilento presented a collection of deformed New Guinea skulls and simultaneously established

the Cilento Medal to be awarded by the Institute each year to a person deemed to have made the most important contribution to Aboriginal welfare and tropical hygiene in Australia.

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57   ‘Report of the Director. Australian Institute of Anatomy. 1st July, 1931-30th June, 1932’, pp. 2, 3, 4; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy. July 1st 1932-June 30th 1933’, pp. 2, 3; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st 1933 to June 30th 1934’, pp. 1-2; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st, 1934 to June 30th, 1935’, p. 5, CRS A1928, item 695/17; minute, Director-General of Health to Acting Director, Institute of Anatomy, 16 October 1944, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 3; MacCallum, ADB, vol. 10, p. 307; Gibbney, Canberra 1913-1953, p. 167.

58   Mode of address as explained in https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/25659/how-to-address-a- knighted-academic

59   Anon., ‘The orations at the Australian Institute of Anatomy, Canberra’, Health, vol. 11, August 1933, pp. 68-72; ‘Report of the Director. Australian Institute of Anatomy. 1st July, 1931-30th June, 1932’, p. 1, CRS A1928, item 695/17.

1935-6: the Ramsay Smith Collection of 60 skulls was purchased; and

1936: a collection of Australian, Papua-New Guinean and Fijian ethnographic material was purchased from Mr J.W. Lindo from South Australia.60

Perhaps the Institute’s most famous acquisition of all was the heart of the champion Australian racehorse, Phar Lap.

Along with the endowed lectures and the steady acquisition of new material, MacKenzie was successful in securing some additional specialist staff for the Institute during his period as Director. In August 1934, Dr Philip Cutner started work as MacKenzie’s medical assistant, but he unfortunately departed after only seven months. The following year, federal Cabinet approved the creation of two new professional positions at the

Institute, those of experimental biologist and biochemist. In June 1935, Dr Geoffrey Bourne took up the former position and Mr Russell Allan the latter on a temporary basis. Within a year, Miss Doris Anderson had taken over from Allan as the Institute’s biochemist. The vacant position of medical assistant was filled in 1936 by Dr Charles Mackay, who had just returned to Australia after two decades in England.61

Figure 20: Institute of Anatomy, 1933 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Institute of Anatomy in 1933

60   Eben H. Hipsley, ‘The Australian Institute of Anatomy’, Health, new series vol. 1, March 1951, p. 18; Wurm, ‘The Institute of Anatomy Ethnological Collections’, p. 2; minute, MacKenzie to Acting Prime Minister, 5 November 1930, CRS A2644, item 70; ‘Report of the Director, Institute of Anatomy. 1st July, 1931-30th June, 1932’, pp. 1-2; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy. July 1st 1932-June 30th 1933’, p. 1; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st 1933 to June 30th 1934’, pp. 2-3; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st, 1934 to June 30th, 1935, p. 3; ‘The Australian Institute of Anatomy. Annual Report for the Year ending 30th June, 1936’, p. 2; ‘Annual Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy for the Year 1936-1937’, p. 1; ‘Annual Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy for the Year 1937-1938’, p. 2, CRS A1928, item 695/17.

61   ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st 1933 to June 30th 1934’, p. 3; ‘Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy July 1st, 1934 to June 30th, 1935’, p. 1; ‘The Australian Institute of Anatomy. Annual Report for the Year ending 30th June, 1936’, p. 1, CRS A1928, item 695/17; ‘Obituary: Charles Vincent MacKay’, MJA, 22 August 1953.

Figure 21: Institute of Anatomy, Mildenhall Collection 1901–1948 (National Library of Australia)

Institute of Anatomy

Figure 22: Photograph of the Buildings in Acton, 1938 (National Library of Australia 2018)

Photograph of the buildings in Acton

While the Institute flourished for much of the 1930s, there were some problems with the building itself. For some time after its completion, the courtyard remained an eyesore, covered with the contractor’s litter and construction debris. On the initiative of the Civic Administrator, Charles Daley, unemployment relief workers were employed during 1932 to clean up the area, top-dress and sow it with grass seed, and lay down paths of coarse gravel. This was little more than a temporary measure, however, as visitors to the Institute still had to enter the museums by way of the administration and research wing, rather than from the courtyard, as had originally been intended. The difficulty was not resolved until mid-1936 when, in accordance with the original plans, the paths in the courtyard were cemented.62

A more disturbing problem was leakage of the roof during heavy rain. MacKenzie first reported on this in March and April 1936, stating that a ‘considerable volume’ of water had entered both museums during recent rainstorms. To correct the problem, eight additional downpipes were installed. The leakage continued, however, both in the museums and

in the colonnades surrounding the courtyard. A little later in the year, it was discovered that the malthoid roofing had undergone severe weathering, with the roofing over the colonnade particularly badly blistered and perished. Following further instances of heavy leakage into the museums, repairs were eventually carried out on the roofs in 1938. Some unspecified repairs and renovations were also made to the Director’s residence during the same year.63

The end of the MacKenzie period at the Institute – and of its heyday as the scientific and cultural centre of Canberra – occurred with some abruptness. From April to September 1936, MacKenzie took five months’ leave of absence to visit a number of related institutions overseas. Shortly after his return, a ‘mental degeneration’ that had already been evident for at least two years began to deteriorate rapidly. By the latter half of 1937, Cumpston was forced to inform the Minister for Health, now W.M. Hughes, that MacKenzie was ‘mentally quite incapable of any professional work, and … [had] largely to be looked after by somebody else.’ MacKenzie resigned in November 1937 and

returned to Melbourne with his wife. He died there on 29 June 1938. A bronze plaque to his memory was subsequently erected in the foyer of the Institute and his ashes placed behind it.64

In characterising the Institute of Anatomy during MacKenzie’s period as Director, one description that could fairly be applied was that it resembled an extended family or clan. The family influence at the Institute was very strong. Before he married her, MacKenzie’s wife had been his research assistant, while Dr Charles MacKay, who was appointed medical assistant at the Institute in 1936 and became its Acting Director on MacKenzie’s retirement, was MacKenzie’s first cousin. Other Institute staff, such as the histologist Mr W. Owen and the photographic artist Miss Lovett, were long-term members of MacKenzie’s close-knit group of loyal assistants. As already noted, too, MacKenzie established an annual endowed lecture at the Institute in honour of his mother. The Charles MacKay Lecture, established in 1933, was inaugurated in honour of MacKenzie’s maternal grandfather, the endowee being MacKenzie’s sister.

Figure 23: Hotel Acton, Beauchamp House Australian Institute of Anatomy from City Hill 1927–35 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Hotel Acton, Beauchamp House Australian Institute of Anatomy from City Hill

62   Minute, Daley to Secretary, Dept of Home Affairs, ‘Institute of Anatomy ... Grounds’, 25 February 1932, CRS A431, item 59/450; minute, C.V. MacKay to Director-General of Health, 11 May 1936, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 2; ‘Annual Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy for the Year 1936-1937’, p. 1, CRS A1928, item 695/17.

63   Minute, MacKenzie to Director General of Health, 20 April 1936; minute, MacKay to Director-General of Health, ‘Re Malthoid Covering of Roof of this Institute’, 8 May 1936; minute, P.A. Gourgand to Director-General of Health, ‘Institute of Anatomy - Roofing’, 2 December 1936, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 2; minute, MacKay to Director-General of Health, ‘Maintenance of Building’, 13 May 1938, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 3.

64   ‘The Australian Institute of Anatomy. Annual Report for the Year ending 30th June, 1936’, p. 1, CRS A1928, item 695/17; letter, Cumpston to W.M. Hughes, 29 October 1937, CRS A1928, item 695/24; Australian Encyclopaedia, vol. 5, p. 435, NFSA information sheet, ‘The Building of the National Film and Sound Archive’.

Even the Halford Oration and the face mask of Halford in the foyer of the Institute bespeak a connection with the MacKenzie family. Halford had taught MacKenzie and two of his older brothers at the Melbourne medical school. It is possible as well that some family influence was at work in securing the Basedow Collection for the Institute. Basedow had been an associate of the explorer Donald Mackay and had in fact led the second Mackay expedition into Arnhem Land. Mackay was the son of an Alexander Mackay and Annie MacKenzie who, like MacKenzie’s own parents, hailed from the eastern highlands of Scotland.65

The Institute of Anatomy could also be characterised from the very beginning as a curiously anachronistic institution. It is almost

as though it embodied a prolongation of the Victorian custom of amassing vast collections of natural history specimens. MacKenzie’s theories about the relevance of the study of Australia’s fauna to human health also appear rather quaint. Ironically, it was one of MacKenzie’s own family who delivered the most devastating assessment of these theories. In response to an enquiry from Cumpston after MacKenzie’s retirement, Dr Charles MacKay proffered the following remarkably candid opinion:

[The] purpose was to ascertain whether our native animals held secrets which might shed light on problems associated with the health and disease of human beings living in the Commonwealth.

It is my considered opinion, given very reluctantly, that this second objective has proved to be impracticable.

I do not think that the Australian native animals are likely either now or in the future to give us any special information which will definitely alter the practice of medicine or surgery in any one particular.66

This assessment was echoed by the eminent anatomist, Professor Frederick Wood Jones, who was quoted by Cumpston as saying that the relevance of the study of Australian animals to human health was ‘very remote’, such that it was ‘hardly worth while further pursuing this presumed relationship.’67

Figure 24: Australian Institute of Anatomy by Frank Hurley,1938 (National Library of Australia 2018)

Australian Institute of Anatomy by Frank Hurley

65   MJA, 22 August 1953, p. 315; Health, August 1933, pp. 70-2; Ian Harmstorf, ‘Basedow, Herbert’, ADB, vol. 7, pp. 202-3; David Carment, ‘Mackay, Donald George’, ADB, vol. 10, pp. 289-90.

66   Minute, MacKay to Director-General of Health, 10 November 1937, CRSA1928, item 695/3 section 2.

67   Letter, Cumpston to W.M. Hughes, 29 October 1937, CRS A1928, item 695/24.

2.10 Renewal and Decline

With the retirement of MacKenzie, Cumpston moved quickly to try to re-define the Institute’s role in the public health arena. Concerned that the Institute had been running down in parallel with the decline in MacKenzie’s health, Cumpston wanted to ‘restore it in a modified form’. Before taking any action, however, he sought the views of MacKay and Wood Jones. MacKay suggested that the Institute should focus on the health problems of a young country with a small population, and thus should deal more generally with the subject of health and disease in Australia. To this end, MacKay suggested that the Institute should become the Headquarters of the newly-formed National Health and Medical

Research Council [NHMRC]. On the strength of this advice, Cumpston asked the NHMRC to inspect the building and its facilities with a view to the organisation’s taking it over. After the inspection and due consideration of the matter, the NHMRC refused Cumpston’s offer, stating that it ‘cannot find any place for the Australian Institute of Anatomy in its projected research program at the present time.’68

Unsuccessful in this approach, Cumpston then turned to the Advisory Council on Nutrition and in particular to its recommendation that a section should be formed within the Department of Health for the study of child growth, with special reference to children’s diet. Cumpston envisaged that the Institute would become the national

centre for this research and proposed that, to accommodate the research effort, a new wing be added to the back of the existing building. Cabinet agreed to the proposal in March 1938. When the government’s plans for the Institute were announced in the press, however, it provoked a storm of protest in the Canberra community and in Parliament. Many saw the proposal both as a dismantling of the principles on which the Institute had been established and as a violation of Griffin’s plan for the city. The government, meanwhile, sought legal opinion from the Solicitor-General as to the legality of its proposal to build the new wing. On receiving his advice that it contravened the Institute

of Anatomy Act, the government promptly dropped the scheme.69

Figure 25: Proposed additions, 1938 (NFSA 2018)

Proposed additions to the Institute of Anatomy, 1938

68   Minute, MacKay to Director-General of Health, 10 November 1937, pp. 3-4, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 2; F.W. Clements, ‘Review of the Functions of the Australian Institute of Anatomy. Reorganisation of Staff and Reclassification of Salaries’, December 1945, p. 3, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 3.

69   Minute, Cumpston to Minster for Health, 25 November 1937; Earle Page, Cabinet Agenda: Health No. 503, 20 January 1938; minute, Director-General of Health to Secretary, Treasury, 20 March 1938, CRS A1928, item 695/24; Gibbney, Canberra 1913-1953, p. 193.

Despite this setback, Cumpston and the government moved ahead with their plans to make the Institute the centre for the study of child health, nutrition and growth. In July 1938, the position of Director was filled by Dr Frederick W. Clements, a specialist with qualifications in public health and tropical medicine, who had a particular interest in infant nutrition. A dietician was added to the Institute’s staff shortly afterwards. Research soon commenced into such topics as the chemistry of whole and powdered milk, and abnormalities in bone growth in children. A summer school of nutrition was held in January 1939. In the same month, and in accordance with the Institute’s new direction, it assumed responsibility for the planning and control of research in ‘child development centres’ that had recently been established in each state. These were the six Lady Gowrie Homes for Children, set up in a collaborative effort between the Commonwealth government and the Australian Association for Pre-School Child Development. A positive development of a different nature occurred from 1 October 1938 when, at the request of the Canberra Tourist Bureau, the Institute’s opening hours were extended, especially on weekends, to cater for an increasing number of tourists.70

With the changes taking place in the Institute, the MacKenzie influence continued to dwindle. Already in late 1936, the Institute’s experimental biologist, Dr Bourne, had been transferred to Sydney, and in July the following year the histologist, Owen, had died suddenly; his position was subsequently abolished. Miss Lovett, the photographic artist, resigned one

month after MacKenzie’s resignation, and the services of biochemist Doris Anderson were terminated in March 1938. MacKay, the Acting Director, retired a few weeks after Clements’s appointment to the permanent position. In the Institute’s two museum blocks, the displays were extensively reorganised such that a greater emphasis was placed on the presentation of simple lessons in human hygiene. Descriptive legends for the exhibits and coloured photographs were also introduced at this time.71

The outbreak of World War II completely disrupted the Institute’s new direction and research program. Most of the research work begun under Clements was suspended, with the Institute instead having to concentrate on research that was related to the war effort. The first of these projects commenced in early 1940, as a result of the Commonwealth government’s consideration, as a wartime measure, of adding a thiamine supplement to white flour used for making bread. Before any such move was made, Clements and his staff were asked to devise and carry out assays of the thiamine content of Australian wheat and flour. The Institute accomplished this project over the two years 1940-41. With Japan’s entry into the war in early 1942, however, almost all of the Institute’s staff dispersed to various military research units. For almost the entire year, the Institute had only four staff members, with Clements himself dispatched to the central office of the Department of Health.72

Work at the Institute picked up again from the end of 1942. At the request of the Australian Food

Council, the Institute embarked at this point on a nationwide education program on proper nutrition. This work led, from March 1944 onward, to the regular publication and distribution of a free newsletter, Food and Nutrition Notes and Reviews. Meanwhile in 1943, the government had become more acutely aware that food was a crucial part of the war effort. As a consequence, Clements was returned to the Institute to re-assemble his scientific staff and begin investigations into the foodstuffs of the Australian and American armed forces and of various Australian government departments. At the same time, the Nutrition Committee of the NHMRC had become concerned about the possible nutritional effects on the Australian population of food rationing and shortages. To determine if there were such effects and what they might be, the Institute was entrusted with the conduct of a nationwide food consumption survey. Canberra University College also started holding its Zoology I courses in the Institute in early 1944. With such major research and teaching projects in hand, the number of people working at the Institute swelled to over forty during 1944. For extra research space, staff moved into the southern basement, transferring all of the ethnographic material to its northern counterpart.73

As the end of the war approached, it became necessary to provide for the Institute’s return to the work on nutrition and growth which the war had interrupted. Cumpston and Clements now both felt that the building did not contain sufficient space to house the laboratories needed for the Nutrition Research

View image in the official source

70   ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy Activities During 1939’, CRS A1928, item 695/17; Page, Cabinet Agenda: Health No. 503, 20 January 1938, CRS A1928, item 695/24; minute, J.A. Carrodus, Secretary, Dept of the Interior to Director-General of Health, 27 September 1938; minute, Cumpston to W.H.B. Dickson, 30 September 1938; Clements, ‘Review of the Functions …’, December 1945, p. 3, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 3; Proust, History of Medicine in Canberra and Queanbeyan, p. 54; AJS, vol. 2, no. 1, p. 4.

71   ‘Annual Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy for the Year 1936-1937’, p. 1; ‘Annual Report of the Australian Institute of Anatomy for the Year 1937-1938, p. 1, CRS A1928, item 695/17; ‘Anatomical Research. Institute Extension’, [Melbourne] Argus, 2 June 1938; AJS, vol. 2, no. 1, p. 3.

72   Clements, ‘Activities of the Institute of Anatomy during the War Years’, 1945; minute, Clements to Acting Director-General of Health, ‘Statement of the Development of the Institute During the last Six Years’, 29 March 1946, pp. 1-2, CRS A 2644, item 70.

73   Clements, ‘Activities of the Institute of Anatomy during the War Years’, 1945; minute, Clements to Acting Director-General of Health, ‘Statement of the Development of the Institute During the last Six Years’, 29 March 1946, p. 2, CRS A 2644, item 70; minute, T.M. Owen, Secretary to Council of Canberra University College to Cumpston, 17 February 1944, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 3; Wurm, ‘The Institute of Anatomy Ethnological Collections’, p. 3.

Section (or Unit) of the Department of Health. They therefore revived the pre-war plan to construct a fourth wing at the back of the existing building, submitting their proposal for consideration to the Public Works Committee. For its part, the Committee failed to see the need for the new wing and rejected the proposal. Work on nutrition studies nonetheless resumed and, in February 1945, the Institute gained an additional responsibility when Cabinet gave its approval for the setting up within the building of a postgraduate School of Nutrition. The first one-year school commenced the following month with an enrolment of twelve postgraduate students.74

Cumpston’s retirement in June 1945 prompted a fresh assessment of the Institute’s role and its future. A major review of the institution was carried out in December 1945, the main recommendation of which was that the Institute should be

divided into four sections: medical, anatomical, physiological and biochemical. Clements proposed at the same time that the name should be changed to ‘The Australian Institute of Biological Studies’. In the event, neither proposal was adopted. The Institute remained the Department of Health’s Nutrition Research Section and continued to carry out research in this field. It was, however, becoming something of a backwater in the department, as Cumpston’s successors as Commonwealth Director-General of Health were not as favourably disposed to the Institute as he had been. This unsympathetic attitude was demonstrated in 1949 after Clements resigned to take up the position of Chief of Nutrition with the World Health Organisation in Geneva. No-one was appointed to assume Directorship of the Institute and, in fact, the position was never again filled. Dr Eben Hipsley took over from Clements as the head of

the Nutrition Research Section at the Institute.75

In the early 1950s, a proposal surfaced to accommodate the ANU’s Department of Physiology in the Institute building. A Mr N.T. Irwin of Ainslie carried out certain modifications to the building for this purpose, and this was probably the occasion when part of the northern basement was converted into six laboratories. The ethnographic material, which had been stored in this basement for some years, was piled up in one corner. Despite the alterations, the Department of Physiology decided not to move into the building after all. Next year, however, the Commonwealth Health Laboratories took up residence, occupying the administration block and part of the southern basement which had also been partially converted into laboratories by this time.76

Figure 26: Proposed additions, 1945 (NFSA 2018)

Proposed additions, 1945 (NFSA 2018)

74   PWC, ‘Report relating to the proposed Additions to the Institute of Anatomy, Canberra’, 1945; minute, Clements to Acting Director-General of Health, ‘Statement of the Development of the Institute During the last Six Years’, 29 March 1946, p. 2, CRS A2644, item 70; minute, Secretary to Cabinet to J.M. Fraser, Minister for Health, ‘Agendum No. 791: Proposal for the establishment of a post-graduate School of Nutrition at the Australian Institute of Anatomy, Canberra’, 19 February 1945, CRS A1928, item 726/16 section 1.

75   Clements, ‘Review of the Functions …’, December 1945, pp. 13, 20, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 3; Proust, MJA, 4 July 1994, p. 62; information from Dr Proust.

76   Minute, R.M. Taylor, Director of Works, Dept of Works and Housing to Secretary, Canberra Committee on Works Priorities, ‘Institute of Anatomy – Modifications to house Department of Physiology of the Australian National University’, 22 February 1952, CRS A431, item 59/450; Wurm, ‘The Institute of Anatomy Ethnological Collections’, p. 3, CRS A1658, item 151/1/7.

During 1954-55, the Head of ANU’s Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Professor Nadel, and his wife took a personal interest in the long neglected ethnographic material and began to unpack it and sort it out. They were given special permission to reorganise the northern museum to display some of this material. Unfortunately, this work was cut short with Professor Nadel’s death in 1955. Eventually, however, the Institute’s two display halls were reorganised such that the northern one came to house what was called the National Ethnographic Collection. The southern hall continued to exhibit anatomical specimens.77

Throughout the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, the main function of the Institute continued to be the conduct of a wide variety of nutrition studies and research into children’s health and development. By 1958, a number of CSIRO scientists were also based at the Institute, carrying out research on the dung beetle. By this time, too, the former Director’s residence had been divided into an upstairs and downstairs flat, both of which were occupied by professional staff members of the Institute. All the while, public interest in the Institute, as measured by the number of visitors, grew strongly. From an estimate of nearly 60,000 visitors per year at the end of the war, the number rose to an annual figure of approximately 300,000 in 1958. In 1961, the Institute’s founder was honoured by the construction in the courtyard of a memorial pool, a gift of his widow.78

The transfer of the Commonwealth Health Laboratories from the Institute to Canberra Hospital in 1966 marked the beginning of the final chapter in the Institute’s history. Although the National Biological Standards Laboratory [NBSL] now moved into the building, the research into nutrition and child development which had flourished since the end of the war now declined. Indeed, Hipsley himself was transferred to the head office of the Department of Health and, after his retirement in 1975, he was not replaced as head of the Nutrition Research Section.

2.11     National Film and Sound Archive

The vacation of the building by the NBSL in early 1984 provided the government with an opportunity to find a new role for the building, even though some health research was still carried on there.

In April 1984, the government announced the formation out of the National Library of an autonomous National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), to be housed in the former Institute of Anatomy.

Figure 27: Original Logo, 1984 (NFSA 2018)

Original National Film and Sound Archive logo from 1984

The building was extensively renovated for its new role and its vast collection of ethnographic material, known as the National Ethnographic Collection, was removed to the custody of the Museum of Australia79. The Prime Minister Bob Hawke officially opened the NFSA in the former Institute on 3 October 1984. On 30 September 1991, Mr Hawke’s wife, Mrs Hazel Hawke, officially opened the remodelled courtyard, which had been redesigned as  a period garden of the 1920s by Cedric Bryant.80

View image in the official source

77   ‘Draft for Annual Report – 1954-55. Institute of Anatomy’, p. 1, CRS A1658, item 151/1/7; brochure, ‘Australian Institute of Anatomy’, 1970s, in file on National Film and Sound Archive held by the Canberra and District Historical Society.

78   Hipsley, Health, new series, vol. 1, pp. 18-20; Proust, History of Medicine in Canberra and Queanbeyan, p. 171; Clements, ‘Review of the Functions

…’, December 1945, p. 6, CRS A1928, item 695/3 section 3; Stone, Australian Encyclopaedia, vol. 1, p. 213.

79   Now the National Museum of Australia.

80   Proust, History of Medicine in Canberra and Queanbeyan, p. 172; Proust, MJA, 4 July 1994, p. 62; Eric Sparke, Canberra 1954-1980, Canberra, AGPS, 1988, pp. 327-8; NFSA leaflet, ‘The National Film and Sound Archive Heritage Courtyard’, c. 1994.

At the same time as the courtyard’s opening, the NFSA was constituted as a statutory authority, with the government appointing an Interim Advisory Council to run it. Hitherto, the Archive had been the only Commonwealth ‘collecting agency’ which was not a statutory authority. Its new status allowed the organisation, among other things, to undertake more commercial activities. These included hiring out the courtyard and parts of the building for such public uses as wedding receptions or as a location for shooting films and television programs. On 14 October 1991, the then Minister for the Arts, Tourism

and Territories opened – or, more accurately, re-opened – the theatre as the State Theatrette which had been ‘relocated’ from its former site at Market Street in Sydney. The theatrette provided a venue at which patrons could pay to view film screenings. The venue retained the original features and fittings of the Institute’s lecture theatre, including its lights, wallpaper, curtains, carpets, ticket box and even its well-worn seats. More up-to-date seating was generously donated in 1994 by Ronin Cinemas in the form of seats it was replacing in its Academy Twin Cinema in Sydney.81

In October 1994, the Keating Labor government released its ‘Creative Nation’ cultural policy statement in which it announced plans to refurbish the Institute building and provide it with new accommodation. A Conservation Management Plan for the building was completed in the following year and, at that time, the government put forward plans to build a two-storey extension facing Liversidge Street at the rear of the Institute.

Figure 28: Prime Minister Bob Hawke opening the NFSA, 1991 (National Archives of Australia 2018)

Prime Minister Bob Hawke opening in the NFSA in 1991

81   Canberra Times, 7 September 1991, p. 5; 15 October 1991, p. 3; National Film and Sound Archive Newsletter, no. 14, August 1994, p. 11; National Film and Sound Archive leaflet, ‘The Archive’, c. 1995.

The extension, which was intended to house the Film and Sound Archive’s principal administrative and technical functions, was to be linked to the original building. It was to cost an estimated $12.4 million to build, with work scheduled to start in April 1996. The project was in effect a revival of Cumpston’s unsuccessful proposals to have such an extension built in 1937-38 and again in 1944. It also reportedly accorded with the views of the Institute’s architect, W.H. Morris, who in 1985 – five years before his death – told a representative of the National Capital Development Commission that it

was ‘appropriate and proper’ that the building should be added on to in such a fashion.82

Following the change of government in the election of March 1996, the new Howard government deleted the project from its budget of that year, much to the dismay of NFSA staff. Many staff members were working uncomfortably in the building’s basements or in nearby demountables, while the condition of the building itself continued to deteriorate, particularly through water penetration. The Howard government resurrected the project

in 1997, allocating $15 million to build the extension. Contractors for the construction of the building, Civil and Civic, commenced work in January 1998, with an expected

completion date of November in that year. The extension was not designed as a piece of faux heritage – that is,

to mimic the Art Deco features of the original building – but rather through its scale and external finishes to be sympathetic to the style of its predecessor. It was, as well, to include a new entrance off

Liversidge Street which also provided wheelchair access.83

Figure 29: Model of proposed NFSA Building extensions, 1994 (NFSA 2018)

Model of proposed NFSA building extensions

82   National Film and Sound Archive News, December 1994, p. 2; Canberra Times, 25 October 1995, p. 3; 2 November 1995.

83   Canberra Times, 14 September 1996; 22 December 1997, p. 10.

The new extension was opened by Prime Minister Howard on 21 June 1999 and, at the same time, the Film and Sound Archive’s name was changed to the National Screen and Sound Archive, which was abbreviated to ScreenSound Australia.

Figure 30: ScreenSound Australia Logo, 1999 (NFSA 2018)

ScreenSound Australia logo from 1999

A few years later, in 2003, the government decided to amalgamate ScreenSound with – or incorporate it into – the Australian Film Commission. The change occurred on 1 July when ScreenSound became a branch of the Commission, thus losing its independent status.  ‘Bitter controversy’ and protests broke out late in the year and continued on into 2004 after the Film Commission produced a directions paper on the future of ScreenSound. The paper contemplated restructuring the organisation and, reportedly, reducing its staffing. The Commission apparently backed off with its plan, while in December of that year the name ‘ScreenSound’ was dropped and its former title, the National Film and Sound Archive, reinstated.84

A new development occurred in August 2007 when the North Gallery was converted into a Cinema. It was officially opened by the Minister for the Arts, Senator George Brandis, as the Arc Cinema. It thereafter became a venue for screening old and/or rare films.

At the beginning of July 2008, the National Film and Sound Archive was once again constituted as a statutory authority. On the occasion of the launch a smoking ceremony was held with local indigenous representatives.

Another major change was the adaptation of the original theatre as a modern, state of the art lecture facility in 2013.

In August 2018, after a break of five years, the NFSA recommenced exhibitions in the South Gallery and re-opened this area of the building to the public.

Today the future spatial needs of the NFSA are being considered including the possibility of a move to its own purpose-built facility, possibly near other major cultural institutions.

Figure 31: NFSA Logos, 2007 – 2017 (NFSA 2018)

National Film and Sound Archive logo from 2007Old National Film and Sound Archive logo Old National Film and Sound Archive logoCurrent National Film and Sound Archive logo