Section 67 - National Film and Sound Archive Heritage Management Plan 2021 - Letter, Cumpston to W.M. Hughes, 29 October 1937, CRS A1928, item 695/24. | Zoe
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
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
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
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.
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
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.