This joint nomination by Australia and Tuvalu concerns an historically significant scientific expedition to Funafuti Atoll in the Ellice Islands (now Tuvalu) in 1897, by a team led by Australian geologist, Tannatt William Edgeworth David. The expedition, which followed a previous expedition in 1896, investigated Charles Darwin’s theory of the formation of coral atolls seven years after his death. Darwin observed during the Beagle voyage in the late 1830s that atolls were formed by the subsidence of oceanic volcanic islands, along with the upward growth of reef-constructing coral formation. This expedition was unique in its ability to assess and prove Darwin’s hypothesis in a short period of time. The records, including manuscript items, photograph albums and lantern slides, provide two different viewpoints of the expedition. Firstly, the scientific expedition records created by David and his team and the Report of the Coral Reef Committee of the Royal Society form an important baseline for understanding the impacts of climate change in Tuvalu, the Pacific, and worldwide. Secondly, writings by Caroline Edgeworth David describe her experiences in Funafuti and her interactions with its people. The contemporary relevance of the documents for the study of climate change with its imminent impact on Tuvalu, and the documentation of the lives of the ancestors of today’s Tuvaluans are of historical and social and community significance.
International Seminar on Establishing National Memory of the World Registers Held on the 25th of August 2021
An international seminar on establishing the National Memory of the World Registers was held online on the 25th of August 2022. The seminar was hosted by the National Archives of Indonesia and the Indonesian National MoW Committee for Indonesia. Over 1000 participants from Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore, Brunei and Korea joined the seminar.
The objective of the seminar was to discuss the benights of establishing national MoW registers in general, as well as the plan to develop the Indonesian National MoW Register. Misako Ito (Regional Advisor for Communications and Information for UNESCO Bangkok), Minh Huong (Vice-Chair of MOWCAP, Helen Jarvis (Chair of the MOWCAP Register Sub-Committee), Kyung-ho Suh (MOWCAP Register Sub-Committee), and Andrew Henderson (Secratary-General of MOWCAP) joined the meeting.
Andrew Henderson presented on behalf of MOWCAP on the topic of ‘Establishing National Memory of the World (MoW) Registers’. Andrew shared three (3) main messages in his presentation: (i) There is a large potential for a National Memory of the World (MoW) Registers across the Asia-Pacific, with a diversity of documentary heritage, however, only three registers are currently established in the region (ii) national registers are essential as they deepen the impact of the MoW Programme and facilitate engagement with archives, libraries, museums, NGOs, government, the private sector, and the wider public across the whole country; (iii) The process of establishing the National MoW Register is important and should follow the UNESCO MoW General Guidelines with a strong coordinating role for the National MoW Committee.
Roslyn Russell, Chair of the Australian MoW Committee, also joined the meeting and provided an overview of how the Australian National MoW Register operates. The Australian MoW register began in 2001 and now contains 78 inscriptions (www.amw.org.au). The register contains diverse documentary heritage from across the country and is an important tool for raising awareness around the need to safeguard and provide access to this important heritage.
This report on the seminar was developed by Minh Huong (Vice-Chair of MOWCAP) and Andrew Henderson (SG of MOWCAP).
F.E. Williams Collection of Photographs 1922-1943 (2012)
The collection documents the life and work of Francis Edgar Williams (1893–1943) who served as a government anthropologist in the then Australian Territory of Papua from 1922 until his death. The collection of some 2,000 glass plate and celluloid negatives and prints is dispersed among three custodians.
Its significance lies in its depiction of Australia’s role in administering Papua at the time, and in its capturing of the experience of “first contact” with a culture that was scarcely known to the Western world. The photographs reveal the customs, behaviours and lives of the Papuan subjects, covering 18 different ethnographic locations over a time span of nearly 20 years.
They also tell the larger story of a conservative and paternalistic colonial milieu, a world now vanished along with much of the traditional lifestyles of Papuan peoples. For countless generations, communal life had revolved serenely around fishing, gardening and hunting;
now contact with the wider world would bring immense changes. Williams had a strong respect for the role of traditional customary life in ensuring the well-being of the Papuan people. He felt very at ease with his subjects, as they did with him, to which some of his candid shots testify.
Queensland South Sea Islander Indentured Labour Records 1863-1908 (2014)
The South Sea Islander records are the original, official documents created under the legal framework that prescribed the operation of the indentured labour system in Queensland. The term South Sea Islander refers to the people from the Western Pacific brought to Queensland as inexpensive labour to work primarily in the sugar industry but also in the pastoral, pearling and marine industries. Over 50,000 South Sea Islanders employed under more than 62,000 contracts came to Queensland from eighty Pacific islands, but primarily the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and the Solomon Islands.
The records include lists of the labourers and documentation of recruitment, transportation, arrival in Queensland, employment and deportation or exemption from deportation. They show that the practice of engaging indentured labour from the South Sea Islands had
an immediate and lasting impact on the growth and development of Queensland and also provide a tangible connection between this development and the impact on the Islands of the removal of the labour. The collection also provides an important source of information for the descendants of the labourers as well as for researchers.
Through necessity Pidgin English evolved as a means of communication in work environments and as a principal form of inter-group communication in settlements. Pidgin English was taken back to the Pacific Islands and is now the official language of Vanuatu. The records cover a period of extensive labour migration in the Asia-Pacific region and reflect the underpinning philosophies and priorities prevalent at the time. They provide for an understanding of the impact of 19th century regional migration and its impact on social, economic and cultural ties today.
Landmark Constitutional Documents of the Commonwealth of Australia (2008)
Modern Australia began as a British prison settlement in 1788 and grew from a group of colonies into independent nationhood without internal upheavals or revolutions. This collection of landmark documents charts the evolution of Australia as one of the world’s most stable and long-lived democracies. It was the first country in the world to be created as a result of a free vote of its people, and the first country to have its birth recorded by a movie camera.
The documents in this collection constitute the most significant legal instruments effecting major constitutional change in Australia over the 20th century. In addition the film records the moment of the nation’s inauguration and the accompanying festivities.
The documents forming this collection illustrate that the Australian nation is not a static but a constantly evolving entity and their significance lies in their ability to achieve this. Most of the documents are original legal instruments, and include legislation, commissions, letters
patent, proclamations, petitions and legal judgments. Together they are significant for their ability to demonstrate how legal documents can shape the lives of a people and the destiny of a continent.