History of the Barcaldine Historical Society and Museum as recorded by Dell Scott 2016
After the Folk Museum opened at Ilfracombe in the 1960s, Bill Scott, then secretary of the R.S.L. approached the committee regarding buying a building to start a museum, but was unsuccessful. Harry Heumiller was at the meeting and he was the only one interested in the concept. Harry mentioned the proposal of a museum to Rocky Ryan who thought it a great idea and even went to the trouble of building a model of an open air museum. There was a spare room at the back of the Oddfellows Hall in Ash Street, the hall then being rented by the R.S.L. Bill, Harry and Rocky stored the artefacts which they had collected in the back room, larger objects like vehicles were stored at Westbourne Station because Ian Nicholson was sympathetic to the cause. When enough had been collected Bill wrote to the Shire Council for assistance in providing a building for a museum. The Council replied that if a display was set up in the Oddfellows Hall the councillors would go over to have a look at it before making a decision. Jim Bennett was the mayor at the time. Council decided not to support establishing a museum.
Nothing more was done until 1973 when John St Pierre was appointed principal of the State School. John St Pierre attended a Cultural Association meeting, and when asked by Stasia Symonds, acting president at the time, in which area of the arts he was interested, he replied that his main interest was in researching the history of the town. From that moment on things started to happen. The Historical Society was formed, the first meeting being held in the Audio Visual Room at the State School. There were no government grants for museums in those days so the Historical Society thought that they might get some funding through the Cultural Association if they joined. That too proved to be unsuccessful. A display was set up in the Cultural Centre to arouse interest in the community which was well attended.
In October 1973 the Oddfellows hall was demolished to provide a sports area for the State School and the National Bank opposite the Post Office closed. The Council acquired the block of land on which the bank stood. Bill wrote to the council again on behalf of the Historical Society to ask if the Historical Society could rent the National Bank to establish a museum. This time the council agreed to rent the building to the Historical Society, at a nominal fee of $1 per week. The ten members of the Historical Society paid a subscription of $2 each and the museum was started with that $20. Every Saturday morning, the members held a stall in the main street to raise money for the museum.
John St Pierre suggested at a meeting that an inventory of the objects in the museum should be kept, so Dell volunteered for the job, a job she would continue to do for the next 45 years. The council then put another spanner in the works by writing to inform the Society that Council wanted the block of land on which the old bank was situated to build new administration offices and that we would have to find another block of land for the museum. Luckily Mrs Sealy from “Lara” station donated three blocks of land on the corner of Gidyea and Beech Streets for the museum. The Council did get a grant to pay for the cost for removing the building to the new site, but they retained ownership of the building.
Just after the building had been shifted, John St Pierre was transferred. In 1976 Harry Heumiller became president. In 1994 when Jimmy Bryan set up the miniature railway in the grounds and Tom Lockie was president, Bill Scott became an active member of the society once again.
In 1996, following the successful grant application, a curator from the Queensland Museum came to Barcaldine and taught Dell how to correctly accession the museum’s growing collection.
In 1988, the Council bequeathed the museum building to the Historical Society, giving responsibility for the building’s maintenance to the Society. Before that the council paid for the maintenance of the building.
John St Pierre did a lot of research on the shearers’ strike – producing an unpublished manuscript in 1982 – which led to the re-enactment of the shearers’ strike at the showgrounds in 1982. The Cultural Centre obtained a grant to employ Gilbert Spottiswood as the director of the re-enactment, indirectly leading to the establishment of the Australian Workers’ Heritage Centre.
Delphine Scott, 5 September 2016
