Making Tuggeranong Homestead a Charles Bean centre of the Australian War Memorial was an attractive idea, but the memorial did not have the money for it, the director of the memorial, Brendon Kelson, said yesterday.
The ACT Government and the ACT House of Assembly Committee on Conservation, Heritage and Environment have been looking at the fate of the historic homestead over the past few weeks.
Charles Bean, war correspondent and author of The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18, wrote at least four volumes of the 12-volume work at the homestead between 1919 and 1924, including The Story of Anzac. The history tells the story of war from the perspective of ordinary soldiers in the field, rather than the top brass, and made an essential contribution to the awakening of a national pride through the achievements of Australian soldiers.
Mr Kelson said there were not many connections between the ACT and the war, so the development of the homestead as a Bean centre was an attractive idea. However, the memorial did not have enough money for its main functions, so it could not launch new projects of that size.
“”Even if we were offered it on a platter, we would still have to worry about upkeep,” he said. “”We could not put it up as a high priority.”
It was really a matter of local history, rather than one for the memorial, he said. It was more like May Gibbs’s house in Sydney. There was not really a national element to it.
The ACT Government has produced a conservation report on the homestead and surrounds, bounded by Johnson and Ashley Drives in Richardson. A group called the Minders Of Tuggeranong Homestead has called for the site to be preserved. The ACT Government has tentatively designated the area as one for urban renewal, which would see 300 houses on the land surrounding the homestead.
Bean moved to Tuggeranong to get away from constant interruptions.
Tourism and housing developer Anderson Holdings has suggested a $250,000 restoration to make it a tourism-convention centre.
The president of the Conservation Council for the South-East Region and Canberra, Jacqui Rees, said money would always be short, but something of national and international importance should not be destroyed for short-term commercial expediency.
“”Charles Bean’s widow died 18 months ago and she left all the possessions that she had kept of Bean’s to the War Memorial, including his study which was exactly as he had left it one the day he died in 1968,” she said. “”They have only just recreated it at the entrance to the research centre in the War Memorial. It is very crowded and it is not the right place for it, but it is all they had.”
She thought some of the casino money could be used to create a Bean centre. Next year would be the 75th anniversary of the Armistice. She rejected idea of a tourism centre, such as Federation Square.
“”I do not think that repeating these mimics of tourist places from all over the place would be sustainable for Canberra,” she said. Canberra needed something unique. The association with Bean provided that. It would attract tourists from all over in a way that a Federation Square would not.