Issues pertaining to absence of attention to the intangible cultural heritage associated with the NSW Eveleigh Railway Workshops

Despite this obvious recognition of Eveleigh’s heritage significance, little effort has been made by the site’s owners to develop a comprehensive interpretation strategy that recognises the site’s historic value and makes its history available to the visitors and future generations.

I have been arguing for a comprehensive interpretation strategy that recognises the role played by those who inhabited this site since the mid-1990s when I was involved in the production of the Godden Mackay, Eveleigh Management Plan for Moveable Items and Social History and member of the Eveleigh Loco Workshops Heritage Group, chaired by the NSW Government Architect. All to no avail.

The owners and managers of this site have paid lip service to its heritage. While they have recognised Eveleigh’s architectural and technological significance and protected some of its buildings and machinery collection, such recognition has not extended to the site's social value. On the contrary, the record of the lives of ordinary men and women has not been preserved in situ. Overarching concern for 'tangible' industrial remains has been at the expense of their 'intangible' social and cultural associations.

Why is this relevant?

In 2002, UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention (WHC) formally recognised that industrial sites ‘are important milestones in the history of humanity’ because they ‘testify to the ordeals and exploits of those who worked in them’.(i) A year later, in July 2003, the Nizhny Tagil Charter for Industrial Heritage produced by the International Committee for the Conservation of Industrial Heritage went one step further by acknowledging that ‘human memories and customs’ are ‘unique and irreplaceable’ resources that form an integral component of industrial heritage because they record of the lives of ordinary men and women.

The Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted by the thirty-second session of the UNESCO General Conference on 17 October 2003.

This Convention defines the intangible cultural heritage as the practices, representations, expressions, as well as the knowledge and skills, that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage. Sometimes called living cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage is manifested in: oral traditions, social practices and traditional craftsmanship.

The text of the Convention emphasizes that the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage is a complex process involving many actors, commencing with the communities and groups that are its very lifeblood.

According to UNESCO Cultural heritage is a synchronised relationship involving society, norms and values. Symbols, technologies and objects are the tangible evidence of underlying norms and values. They establish a symbiotic relationship between the tangible and the intangible. The intangible heritage must be seen as the larger framework within which tangible heritage takes on its shape and significance.

Proposals:

The NSW Government’s neglect of Eveleigh’s intangible cultural heritage demonstrates a complete disregard of these Convenitions and the wisdom underpinning them.

In 1999, I attempted to do something about this by seeking funding to develop an interpretation strategy and by launching an Eveleigh Employee Register on 29 August. On that occasion I raised the idea of building a commemorative workers’ wall.

I put this proposal to the Premier in October 2000, as well as to Stuart Sharpe at SRA, among other stakeholders.

My idea was that the wall could be made of metal much like the Welcome Wall at the Maritime Museum. I recommended that funding should be provided by the NSW Government with support from private enterprises involved in the rail industry, rather than seeking payment for inclusion from retired Eveleigh workers and/or their families. This formed one of a number of proposals:

1 Formation of a co-ordinating body to bring together the concerns of both government and community stakeholders in the site, preferably a committee with statutory authority to designate and preserve transport heritage, including moveable and non-moveable artefacts, archives (oral, documentary and visual), to co-ordinate and oversee the production and implementation of a heritage interpretation strategy to provide access to the site’s intangible cultural heritage in situ, as well as through the internet and other forms of media, and to manage community involvement with and access to Eveleigh’s heritage at the Precinct.

2 Implement the NSW Government’s Heritage Trades Training Strategy at Eveleigh to ensure that the conservation of Eveleigh’s machinery collection has advantageous educational and financial outcomes.

3 Provide accommodation for relevant organizations at the site to enhance community access to transport heritage.

4 Ensure representation of historians in all future deliberations regarding the site’s redevelopment and re-use.

5 Construction of a Commemorative Workers’ Wall at Eveleigh to enable acknowledgement of the labour that sustained the ‘heart of the NSW transport system’.

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In my view the Construction of a Commemorative Workers’ Wall would provide a permanent memorial to the working lives of the men and women who worked at Eveleigh between the 1880s and the late 1980s.:

• acknowledge those who ensured the efficiency of railway transport through their work at Eveleigh,
• provide a source of pride for those people and their families,
• recognise the site’s human cultural heritage and add meaning to the industrial past for future generations.

Precedent:

A Wall of Names was erected at the Swindon Railway Workshops Museum (STEAM) in the UK consisting of plaques containing the names of those who once worked in the Swindon shops. The aim of this Wall of Names is to celebrate seven generations of Swindon railway workers.

Partly funded by the Swindon Railway Heritage Trust and partly paid for by the past employees or their families, this Wall provides a permanent memorial to the working lives of these men and women.(ii)

In 2001, when I was invited to address the Midland Redevelopment Authority Board in Perth vis-à-vis the future of the Midland workshops, I argued for: a workers’ wall; a living heritage interpretation centre and formal structures for community consultation and engagement.

I was subsequently invited back by the Minister for Planning in 2002, to present a Keynote Address at a Railway Heritage Strategy Forum where I reiterated these proposals.

In 2002 the Midland Redevelopment Authority launched a Workers’ Wall and refurbished the Timekeeper’s Cottage as a heritage Interpretation Centre. In 2003 the framework for the wall was opened for public display.

Seven thousand visitors came and descendents began to order bricks.

Around 3,500 people attended the Dedication of the wall. In 2004 when stage 2 was opened due to demand, another 1,200 attended. That second stage is now complete.

In 2007 the MRA’s CEO told me that the WA Heritage Council now deems the wall to be an important part of the site’s heritage.

This acclamation of the site’s intangible cultural heritage is also supported by an oral history program. The Heritage Interpretation Centre provides a repository for the oral histories, films and other memorabilia that have been donated by retired workers.

These developments bring the site to life, connect the past, present and future and give the site meaning.

(i) World Heritage Convention, ‘Industrial Heritage’, http://whc.unesco.org/sites/industrial.htm viewed 7 March 2006.

(ii) http://www.steam_museum.org.uk

On a related topice read Taksa, L. (2007)- Nostalgia or Nostophobia?: Trends in the interpretation of Australia’s railway industrial heritage’ Building Blocks – Interpretation Australia Association National Conference, 2007 (Papers selected for conference participation by a Committee of Experts in the field of heritage conservation, management and interpretation)

For More information Contact - Associate Professor Lucy Taksa, PhD Director, UNSW Industrial Relations Research Centre, University of NSW, Ph: 02 93857152 Email: l.taksa@unsw.edu.au