Day three of the AFFHO conference started with Michael
McKernan talking about the impact of the First World War on those at home in
Australia. To do this he focused on the
experiences of the families of a couple of individuals, such as the family of
Jack Fothergill of the 6
th Battalion, who died on the first day of
the landings at Gallipoli. His parents
put an
In Memorium notice in the
newspaper every year (except one) from the first anniversary of his death in
1916 until his mother died in 1948. Each
one contained a unique poem written in memory of their son Jack. He also talked about the Whitelaw family, who
had six sons who enlisted, of whom four died. One of those sons, Angus McSween
Whitelaw, was only 16 when he enlisted, though said he was 18. His mother found out and tracked him to his
training camp and told him that if he didn't tell the authorities what his
correct age was, then she would. He told
her that if she did that she would never see him again. Torn between these two options, she said
nothing and eighteen months later he was dead.
 |
| Michael McKernan |
His talk was interesting, but considering he describes
himself as a WWI historian and has led battlefield tours, I was very surprised
when a question from the audience showed that he didn't know that the
commemorative medallions given to the families of the deceased were known as a "Dead
Man's Penny", and that he said they were not given to the families of
Australian casualties, which is the not the case, and I have seen some examples
of them.
The first Keynote of Day 4 was David Holman, whose talk was
entitled Fascinating facts and figures
from five centuries. This is an
amusing "after-dinner" type talk, with some interesting statistics
about names and some very funny examples of marriages (e.g. William Axe
marrying Mary Killer). He had also given
this as a Keynote talk in Adelaide at the previous congress, but it's amusing
and a bit of light relief after three days of intensive learning.
 |
| David Holman |
The final keynote of the conference was the only talk I
attended that was given by Cora Num this time around. She gave all her talks via video link, as she
had injured her neck not long before the conference and was unable to
travel. This talk was
Front page to back page – using online
newspapers. For most of us in
Australia, using online newspapers is second nature. Trove has spoilt us, and
we go out looking for additional "hits" of our favourite
"drug", so most of us are familiar with the Gale offerings, the
British Newspaper Archive, and New Zealand's "Papers Past". Useful as this talk was as a compendium of
the offerings available (and therefore even more useful in its full form in the
Congress Proceedings), I'm not sure that this was what I'd have chosen as a
conference keynote.
 |
| Cora Num giving her keynote via video link |
No comments:
Post a Comment