From:Golden Memories Millthorpe Museum

Name/TitleMillthorpe Museum Rural Technology Collection

About this objectThe GMM Rural Technology collection is large, diverse and well-preserved, encompassing the wool industry; pea, potato, grain, clover and apple growing; mining and geology; shoe making; the workshop; gardening; and transport. The collection’s core, made up of objects from the earlier Museum of Agricultural Progress Collection (MAPC), has been added to by purchases and donations from local farmers, generous benefactors, and companies such as Newcrest Mining Limited and The Land newspaper. Notes provided by Peter Whiley indicate that the overall aim of the collection is to educate the public about farming, to provide a resource for research into the history of agriculture, and to enable ‘nostalgic reminiscing by many older farmers’. The collection does this successfully via extensive artefact displays, information panels, and working displays.

Agricultural technology museums are common to most rural districts in Australia - and indeed the United Kingdom and United States - with most country towns sporting an ‘Historical Museum’, ‘Technology Museum’ or ‘District Museum’. Millthorpe’s display is no exception to this, however the size and diversity of its display makes it one of the more prominent Australian examples of this rural institution. For a volunteer museum in a small country town, the collection - at over two thousand individual pieces (accessioned) - is large.

The collection derives historical significance from its associations with prominent, influential inventors, such as H.V. McKay, J.H. Adamson, A. & J. Dobbie, the Kaesler Brothers, and Donald Hargans. It derives great local historical significance from the numerous examples of items owned and used by local people on local properties, a value that is enhanced by the fact that the collection has drawn from Bathurst, Orange, Spring Hill, Forest Reefs, and Blayney in addition to a tight radius around Millthorpe itself. Rather than being a parochial collection of implements derived solely from Millthorpe, the display is a time capsule of the whole district’s agricultural past. Furthermore, the artefacts displayed in this collection reflect aspects of the wider agricultural history of New South Wales and Australia. Notable in this regard are the Clayton & Shuttleworth steam traction engine, regarded as holding National Significance (Russell and Winkworth 2009: 51), and the numerous items invented in South Australia and Victoria.

The Rural Technology collection is generally well-provenanced. The majority of items and subcollections were owned, used and donated by local families such as the Kinghams, Bentleys, Baileys Whileys and Chapmans. The collection gains national significance through association with historical innovators (eg. H.V. McKay, J.H. Adamson, A.W. Dobbie and Arthur ‘Cliff’ Howard) and prominent local, national and international manufacturers (eg. Ransomes & Sims, George Fish, Mellor Bros, and Clayton & Shuttleworth).

The chronology of agricultural innovation is well-displayed within this collection, which holds objects dating to the 1840s (screw down wool press, later converted), 1860s (Ransomes & Sims subsoil plough), 1870s (travelling box conversion of afore-mentioned 1840s screw down wool press), 1880s (Adamson’s and the Dobbies’ seed sowers), early 1900s (Pratt & Whitney lathe), 1920s / 1930s (Kaesler Bros. clover thresher and Koerstz wool press), and 1940s to 1960s (Hargans saw, potato graders). Geographically, the collection was manufactured throughout Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. This distribution is evidence both of the influence of Australia on agricultural technology abroad and of the preparedness of Australian farmers to adopt technology from overseas.
Furthermore, it is evidence of a healthy, vibrant and global trade in goods and ideas during the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The Rural Technology collection is assessed as holding historic, aesthetic, and social significance. Much of the collection is in good condition, although restoration works have, at times, detracted from the integrity of the original fabric of some items. This is not universal, however, as the Clayton and Shuttleworth engine, Kaesler Brothers clover thresher, screw down wool press and the foundation stone from the Great Western Milling Company retain the essential elements of their original fabric.

The provenance of the collection varies, with some provenance unknown, but the most well provenanced items are associated with detailed histories and evidence of past use. The interpretive capacity of the collection is one of its great strengths, with numerous displays enabling the visitor to watch machinery in use. As a whole collection the Rural Technology collection contributes to our understanding of the story of agriculture and mining in the Central West. The collection also contributes to our understanding of the history of primary industry in New South Wales and Australia as a whole.

Kim Tuovinen 2010

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