The protection of industrial movable cultural heritage and the role of volunteer organisations in Australia

Neil Meyers

doi:10.37190/arc200105

Abstract

This article focuses on issues related to the current legal situation of historic machinery and vehicles in Australia as well as the competencies, skills and commitment of persons (both professionals and amateurs, or volunteers) dealing with their protection. Australia’s listed industrial heritage is generally limited to industrial buildings, as most often production equipment has been scrapped or relocated. The author discusses the need for legislative reform to enable the listing and protection of historic machines in a similar way to the listing and protection of historic buildings, based on an assessment of their value and relationships with local communities. He also discusses the need for volunteer organizations dealing with big stuff to re-examine what they need to do to attract professionals (diversified in terms of profession, age, interests, etc.) and work with protection funding bodies to create funding structures that support multi-year industrial heritage preservation projects.

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2020

1(61)

DOI: 10.37190/arc200105

Introduction

Heritage listing provides formal recognition by a local

council, State Government or Federal Government that an

artefact has heritage signicance and that the community

wants to keep it for future generations.

Industrial heritage, in the sense of actual machinery

and workings, is poorly represented in Australian list-

ings of heritage sites and places. While listings and doc-

uments such as The National Heritage Register [1], the

Victorian Heritage Register [2] and the Australian Her-

itage Stra tegy [3] record a number of places connected

with industrial activities, the architecture of the buildings

generally receives more detailed attention than the func-

tional facilities. The Day’s Flour Mill Complex listed in

the Victorian Heritage Register [4], for instance, comes

up under the category “Registered object integral to a reg-

istered place”, but the photographs provided are all exteri-

or shots of buildings, and the description focuses heavily

on the buildings and grounds, with almost nothing about

the actual machinery and processes undertaken at the site.

More detailed descriptions of functional characteristics

are aorded to the few movable heritage items that are

listed without an associated historical place, such as the

Bucyrus Railroad Steam Shovel [5], but this is unusual as

most Australian heritage listings and documents, like the

Australian Heritage Strategy and the Victorian Govern-

Neil Meyers*

The protection of industrial movable cultural heritage

and the role of volunteer organisations in Australia

Rola organizacji wolontariuszy

w ochronie ruchomego dziedzictwa przemysłowego w Australii

ment’s 2018 State of Heritage Review: Local Heritage [6],

specically exclude movable cultural heritage (whether it

is industrial or not).

In excluding industrial objects and sites, or minimiz-

ing reference to their industrial aspects, these documents

implicitly fail to provide any direction on their preserva-

tion. In the State of Heritage Review: Local Heritage for

example, the Heritage Council of Victoria reviewed the

status of the state’s cultural heritage resources and any

steps necessary to protect and conserve them. Not only

does this study exclude movable cultural heritage, but

even its section dedicated to Industrial Heritage Adap-

tive Reuse Case Studies is overwhelmingly focused on

adapting the architecture, with heritage machinery being

relegated to the role of decoration or atmosphere. The

adaptation of the 19

-century Crago Flour Mill in New-

town, Sydney, for example, merely notes that the residual

machinery has been retained “to give the project a specic

character” [7]. What that character is, or why it is signi-

cant, or how the machinery worked is not addressed.

Ian Wills, in his 2013 presentation to the Engineers Aus -

tralia 17

Heritage Conference [8], explained that the rea-

sons for the treatment of industrial heritage sites could be

attributed to their original functional purpose and lack of

aesthetic appeal, negative associations such as pollution or

harsh working conditions, and the fact that industrial sites

in major cities are often attractive for redevelopment. Wills

also found that industrial heritage is subject to the prioriti-

sation of replacing the old with “newer and better”, often as

the result of the culture of the engineering profession itself,

although it could be argued that strong economic drivers are

* ORCID: 0000-0003-2759-4753. National Steam Centre, Scores-

by, Victoria, Australia.

32 Neil Meyers

also prevalent. At the end of an industry’s commercial life,

land use change resulting in development often means that

in situ preservation of the machinery used in these indus-

tries is almost impossible, with machinery, tools, associated

records and paraphernalia removed, scrapped or sold.

There are rare examples of the in situ preservation of en-

gineering heritage providing a comprehensive, integrated

and holistic industrial story, but ex situ preservation is

more common, with signicant industrial heritage items

being owned by public organisations and within privately

owned collections. These collections are gene rally sub-

jected to dierent risks and threats than in situ artefacts.

Collections and acquisition

of industrial movable cultural heritage

Public collections are often centralised in population

centres and tend to target highly signicant artefacts, but

donations and poor de-accessioning policies mean that

signicant artefacts are often jumbled with less signicant

items. Good collecting policies help to ensure that the ac-

quisition of any item is based strongly on its signicance,

with preservation and conservation also being key areas

of focus, but acquisitions are now also being driven by

a need to entertain and tell specic stories. Generally, but

not always, the more signicant artefacts are retained by

public collections, being publicly owned and conserved,

preserved or restored by paid sta. However, as specialist

skills become less prevalent, there is a move towards pay-

ing for restoration/repair services that is becoming more

common across the sector.

Private and community collections, by contrast, are of-

ten created through serendipitous purchases or additions.

Artefacts are usually purchased, retained or inherited with

little recognition or acknowledgment of signicance. This

results in privately-owned machinery tending to represent

more common artefacts, whether this is small agricultural

pumping engines or (in Australia) the ubiquitous grey Fer-

guson tractor (Fig. 1).

Often the acquisition is based on availability rather than

signicance alone, although highly signicant items are

viewed more positively and often have a price premium.

Some private collections can become important because

of this, either through their size – often focused on one

brand or purpose – or from the almost accidental aggrega-

tion of signicant heritage artefacts. These collections are

often at risk of poor understanding of their signicance,

dispersal, or export.

The overwhelming majority of Australia’s indus trial

heritage is held in community organisations and by private

owners, with only a small proportion of artefacts being

held in public collections [9]. Even then, only a small pro-

portion of these are listed by statutory heritage organisa-

tions. Protection given under current legislation or regu-

lation is minimal and what protection there is lies within

each organisation’s policies and practices. The result is

that heritage artefacts – public and private – coexist with

a variety of arrangements for preservation, conservation

or restoration.

Frameworks for the protection

of industrial movable cultural heritage

Owners of heritage-listed buildings and real estate who

wish to make major changes to their properties which may

aect heritage signicance, may need to seek approval

from a local council or a state-based heritage authority.

Ownership can often bring the terrible perception that

if it is yours, you can do what you like with it and this

works against the idea of stewardship. This misconception

has been debunked for heritage places, where there are

well established statutory controls, sometimes tested and

enforced through an administrative process to ensure that

the core signicance of a heritage item is retained.

The only similar protection for movable cultural her-

itage is the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act

1986 [10] which aims to protect Australia’s movable

cultural heritage by regulating its export. Under this Act

Fig. 1. Ferguson Tractor line up at a show in Western Victoria (photo by N. Myers)

Il. 1. Szereg ciągników Ferguson na wystawie w zachodniej Wiktorii (fot. N. Myers)

 Industrialheritageandtheroleofvolunteers /Rolawolontariuszywochroniedziedzictwaprzemysłowego 33

exporters are responsible for ensuring that items meet all

export permission requirements for private and commer-

cial purposes, but the Act does not provide for the protec-

tion for the fabric, context or signicance of an object, or

require the exporter to provide detailed evidence that the

object is not signicant to Australia. In fact the exporter is

not required to provide much information at all, and there

is actually a nancial incentive to provide minimal infor-

mation on the item being exported. The perverse outcome

of this system is that if you want to ensure that an engine

or artefact is protected and NOT exported, you need to ap-

ply for an export permit for it, provide as much evidence

as possible to demonstrate its signicance to the Aus

tralian context and hope the export permit is refused. This

in turn is a fairly strong incentive to provide an overblown

rather than a strictly accurate assessment of the object’s

signicance. The review of this legislation undertaken

by Simpson in 2015 [11] recommended changing these

requirements so that, if there is no information provided

on an object’s signicance, the object is refused an ex-

port permit (this is similar to the precautionary principle,

where insucient information is not accepted as an ex-

cuse to avoid action). This change would throw the onus

of providing proof that an artefact is not signicant onto

the exporter (who is also the party who is most likely to

prot from the export of the object).

Figure 2 shows the modications to and destruction

of original features of steam traction engines and tractors

originally imported into Australia, with unsympathetic

modications destroying the features that clearly identi-

ed the original purpose and signicance of an artefact,

the evolution of its role over time and the signs of working

life maintenance and modications.

The volunteer workforce

The level of volunteer participation in heritage machin-

ery preservation tends to be much larger than realised.

Data gathered by Operating Heritage Australia suggests

that private owners and volunteers account for around

Fig. 2. A Mann tractor: a) rebuilt in the 1970s from the wreck of a tar sprayer, b) 2017 after extensive modifications

(source: Lake Goldsmith Steam Preservation Association)

Il. 2. Ciągnik Mann: a) przebudowany w latach 70. XX w. z wraku opryskiwacza smoły, b) w 2017 r. po szeroko zakrojonych modyfikacjach

(źródło: Lake Goldsmith Steam Preservation Association)

300,000 people across 2,500 organisations, putting in

25 million hours of work per year, with an economic con-

tribution valued at around $2 billion.

The average age of most industrial and agricultural

heritage clubs is rising. Often, machinery preservation

clubs have members who are predominantly retired, and

who often worked within the industries that serviced or

maintained similar collections. A lack of new and younger

recruits means that membership numbers are generally

static, or slowly reducing.

Membership issues

As generational change occurs, the “hard” skill levels

of volunteers tends to drop as, in general, the industries

that many of the retired members were once involved in

have evolved, and younger professionals in these indus-

tries have dierent skill sets. Heavy industries generally

no longer rely on localised specialist skills to repair or

maintain equipment, or the manual skills once required for

these tasks have overtaken by cheaper, often more accurate

automated alternatives. This provides signicant challeng-

es and opportunities for the restoration of large machinery.

Younger recruits, however, tend to come from more

diverse ethnic, gender and occupation backgrounds, and

they bring new skills to the sector that are often under-

valued. These recruits can be more resourceful and are

generally more comfortable looking for solutions to pres-

ervation and restoration issues globally, rather than seeing

this as a last resort.

These issues impact on how projects are managed,

funded and completed.

Funding

Funding for the preservation, conservation or restora-

tion of movable cultural heritage is primarily from pri-

vate sources, as is shown in Figure 3. Across the sector,

almost 75% is privately funded, with the rate of funding

through visitation varying depending on each individual

a b

34 Neil Meyers

organi sa tion and their activities. For example, the Natio-

nal Steam Centre, operated by the Melbourne Steam Trac-

tion Engine Club, regularly receives between 50 to 60

percent of its total income from visitation, the rest being

sourced through memberships, storage of private displays,

sales and facility hire.

Funding issues

Delving deeper into these gures shows a risk pro-

le common among any volunteer based organisations.

A large proportion of funds are coming into these organi-

sations through visitation primarily through one or maybe

two events per year, and not through weekly or day-to-day

visits. Often a single event is responsible for around 80

to 90 percent of the organisation’s income derived from

visitation. This exposes these organisations to a signi-

cant risk. Analysis of 10 years of the Annual Reports from

the National Steam Centre [12] with data from the Aus-

tralian Bureau of Meteorology [13], showed that weather

was the key determining factor of the success or failure

of the National Steam Centre’s annual Steamfest, with

rain or excessively hot weather over more than a single

day of their event having a signicant impact on the funds

earned. This risk is likely to be exacerbated with more

extreme weather resulting from climate change. Nearly all

weekends are booked for similar events in south-eastern

Australia, with even fewer holiday weekends free, so the

opportunity to adapt to a changing climate is limited.

Government funding is generally sourced from local

Councils or State Governments, and nearly always has

a specic outcome focus based on an annual spending and

reporting cycle. Philanthropic trusts and sponsorships are

similar in this respect, which severely limits the useful-

ness of these sources of funding, as it requires a project

management cycle that can be completed within a year.

As nearly all preservation or restoration activities of large

machinery take more than a single year to complete these

funding models encourage a change to disparate and frag-

mented approaches to project management to accommo-

date these timeframes.

Working with volunteers

Volunteers join an organisation for a broad range of

reasons, from social interaction, maintaining or improv-

ing skills, or some focused interest. Within the indus-

trial heritage movement, two motivations for becoming

a volunteer often conict – maintaining or learning new

skills and undertaking heritage preservation. This is often

viewed amongst volunteers at the National Steam Cen-

tre as two sometimes incompatible skill sets – the “hard”

skills learnt throughout a hard-working life, and the “soft”

skills of record keeping and archiving, preservation and

conservation.

This hard skill/soft skill dichotomy can sometimes

be attributed to a volunteer’s level of understanding of

the importance of signicance and context and its role

within an organisation, especially in ex situ museums.

For many individuals and organisations, the only aim is

to run the machine. This motivation has always attract-

ed a certain type of member and a certain type of visitor.

Appreciating the social, cultural, contextual and histori-

cal knowledge of a machine, however, adds to the story

and widens the attraction and potential pool of visitors

and members [14]. To take advantage of this, skills in in-

terpretation (storytelling), nance, project management,

marketing, training and people management are required,

but attracting people with these capabilities can be di-

cult, and integrating them into the organisation requires

a signicant cultural change that many organisations nd

challenging.

There can be poorly conceived attitudes that restoring

or rebuilding an engine or item of machinery – getting

it running – is more important than preserving remnant

signs of signicance. This attitude is derived from famil-

iarity with how people once worked with such machines

in industry, rather than providing a heritage signicance

framework and structure for preservation and restoration

work. The comment is often made that “People don’t want

to look at a dirty old engine”, but the signs of machine’s

working life often provide the most interesting stories, in-

cluding valuable insights into work-day repairs, a tough

working environment, and modications to keep machin-

ery operating well past a perceived “use-by” date [15].

For organisations that rely on volunteers to help conserve

and restore their machinery, it is therefore vitally impor-

tant to have clear and understandable policies in place for

preservation and restoration projects, including a focused

project plan that identies a clear restoration goal, wheth-

er that be to restore the machine to a “new, as purchased”

state, or “as it was at the end of its working life”, or any-

where along that spectrum.

Conclusions

There is a need to review and amend Australian Federal

legislation and associated regulations to ensure that the

onus of providing evidence to prove the lack of cultural

signicance of an artefact so that the export of the artefact

will not detract from Australian cultural heritage, lies with

the exporter. This would ensure that when the artefact is

Fig. 3. Breakdown of funding sources

for heritage organisations in Australia (source: [9])

Il. 3. Podział źródeł finansowania

organizacji dziedzictwa kulturowego w Australii (źródło: [9])

government /rząd

visitors

zwiedzający