Photo collage by Gabrielle Kemmis. Featuring: top row, L-R Arthur Dale Trendall, Kathleen Windeyer Gale, Alexander Hugh McDonald, Edna Briggs (nee Sayce). Bottom row, L-R Hazel Claire Weekes, A. P. Elkin, Andrew Delbridge Osborn. All of these individuals were interviewed 1970s-1990s as part of research for the first history written about the University of Sydney.
Origins
In the 1970s the University of Sydney embarked on an oral history project as part of the background research for the writing of its history, Australia’s First (2 vols, jointly published by the university and Hale & Iremonger, 1991 & 1996). From the mid-1970s to the early 1990s Professor Ken Cable, Professor William F. Connell, and Dr Ursula Bygott conducted interviews with past and present staff, alumni, and their relations.
The collection
Comprising over 300 interviews, the collection is now held in the University Archives. A glance at the interviewee’s names gives some idea of the treasures this significant collection contains. Many of the interviewees themselves and their relatives, together with others who have heard the recordings, have remarked on the wonderful opportunity it has afforded to again hear these voices — voices which would equally be of interest to a much broader audience. Although unsophisticated recording techniques and poor sound quality have affected many of the tapes, the intimate and relaxed atmosphere in which the interviews were conducted has yielded a wealth of fascinatingly diverse recollections from their subjects.
These interviews are a rich resource for information about the university; they take us back to a period dating from the late 19th century through to the late 20th century, revealing, as Ken Cable said, ‘what life was like from the inside’. The value of this collection lies not just in the glimpses it provides of university life over that period but also in the insights it affords us into the social life and attitudes of those times. Many of the interviewees were themselves significant cultural figures and contributors to Australian public life.
Reviving the collection
In 2002 the University of Sydney appointed Julia Horne as University Historian, with the oral history collection as one of her responsibilities. This provided the opportunity to breathe new life into the original 1970s project and in 2003-04 work was carried out by Julia Horne, with Roderic Campbell and Virginia Pacino, on re-appraising the collection and on how to bring it back into use by making as much of the collection accessible for research as it is possible to do. In 2020, Gabrielle Kemmis worked with Julia to digitise the collection. The company DAMsmart digitized the tapes and under the guidance of Julia and university archivists Nyree Morrison and Vipasha Mukherjee, Gabrielle prepared the collection for deposit with the University Archives. In 2023, the collection became accessible via the University of Sydney Archives new online Recollect user platform.
Categories
Prof. Julia Horne & Dr Gabrielle Kemmis
