Casting Shadows

When in Canberra earlier this week, I lodged at the Hotel Kurrajong which is about two blocks from Old Parliament House and built at the same time - late 1920s. In the foyer of the K, they have old photographs showing empty paddocks stretching between the two. Fast forward 15 years, to the years of World War II, when the Prime Minister was John Curtin from Cottesloe in WA, and his Treasurer was Ben Chifley from Bathurst in NSW. Curtin died in office in 1945 (a few weeks after Rooseveldt) having been PM for 5 years. Chifley was PM from 1945 to 1949. During the war years, they used to walk to work from their lodgings.


This statue of their friendly morning ramble was unveiled about a month ago by our current PM, Julia Gillard from Altona in Victoria. It is based upon an iconic photograph which I have also included. It really is a terrific statue to stumble upon. Extremely life-like and very Australian in its accessibility and egalitarianism. The sculptor was Peter Corlett who was born in 1944. I cannot remember which street it is on, but it is very close to the Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet (PM&C).

Chifley is the one with the pipe!

Curtin was a recovering alcoholic. Chifley had been a train-driver in his earlier life, and kept a mistress.

Botany Cemetery - Statuary

Botany Cemetery is dominated by fresh-air and sunlight. It is open and it is expansive, not in the least maudlin and dark.


As befits the Australian self-concept, I found it to be an egalitarian graveyard. There are maybe half a dozen mausoleum(s), but mostly graves are unpretensious. It goes without saying, therefore, that the statuary is not of a personal nature. It is of this ethereal, heavenly bent. Unlike somewhere like Pere LaChaise which is replete with representations meant to aggrandise the individual.


All four photos were taken on the same day. The deep blue were facing to the south, the grey was facing to the north - towards the city.

Head in the clouds

As I approached, a figure broke from in front the plinth and crunched up the pathway toward the thicket of pines on the ridge, leaving a whiff of ck-One on the breeze. Her (for that is what I surmised from the gait) vest flapped in the draught, and her shoulders weighed her down. A sense of muttering accompanied her.

It was morning; I was alone, save for the heat of the day making its presence felt early. I turned to survey the returned statue, a stranger in a foreign land. That was when I saw the offering, wilting, as flesh and blood is want to do in the presence of cold, hard marble.


Dickens never came to this county. His is not a style that resonates down here. The linked article tells the story of the statue.

Theme Day - Statues - The footballer

Dressed in the woollen cap, sweater and tight knee-length trousers worn by rugby football players of the 19th century, this statue has the Neoclassical face of Apollo. Ironic? There’s more.


Our hero stands high upon a plinth overlooking green playing fields, every bit the macho-dandy, but look closely at his screaming hordes. There surrounding our rugger-bugger, like points of a compass, are four bronze cherubs. North to trumpet the kick-off. South to record the score. East invites attention with her naked behind. And, finally, West standing in glorious victory with the lion-skin of Hercules gracing her shoulders.


As if that is not enough, this Florentine sculptor has sprinkled between our cherubs hordes of tiny putti. Cupid was depicted as a putto, and putti were often shown in attendance on immortals.

Immortals! We are talking football here! This is sounding more like a statue fit for Melbourne and its leaping-leeroys.


Taking a broader perspective, we note the bronze lions, standing in attendance, one in each corner of the octogon base. England still protecting her offspring as it takes its first tentative step into nationhood.

This statue was commissioned by Sir Henry Parkes to adorn the Grand Drive in Centennial Park, to please the gentry as they perambulated in their buggys. I wonder if he knew that the Florentine tongue was wedged firmly in said Florentine cheek.

‘We won’ (aka The Footballer) by Tommaso Sani, 1893

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Statues - Henry Parkes

At the turn of the twentieth century, Centennial Park had 31 statues. Today only 6 remain and only two of those are originals. This statue of Henry Parkes was originally cast in 1897 and recast in 1998. Who was Sir Henry Parkes that he should forever gaze over this pre-eminent of Sydney parks?


On 1st January, 1901, Australia became a federation of states acting under a constitution. Prior to that, the continent housed a gaggle of squabbling self-governing British colonies all acting in their own best interests. On this date, the Commonwealth of Australia came into being. Parkes had taken a leading role in the negotiations and was known as ‘the Father of Federation’.


Born in 1815, Parkes and his wife emigrated to NSW in 1839. He had no schooling and few skills, but was personable with a fine turn of phrase. He lacked any semblance of financial acumen and was forever going bankrupt, as he was at his death in 1896 – penniless, with 12 children living, having been married three times. However, in the meantime, he had been Premier of NSW five times, mainly by recognising and utilising the skills of others.


Through the middle years of the century, Parkes supported issues like the ending of transportation, reduction of suffrage qualifications, and self-government for the colony. In 1883 he and Samuel Griffith from Queensland were instrumental in the setting up of a Federal Council to pursue Federation. Parkes delivered his landmark Tenterfield Oration in October 1889 and in February 1890 in Melbourne the first Federal Convention hammered out the contentious issues of colonial sovereignty. Amendment and counter-charge ensued for the rest of the decade, with the issue affirmed after the death of Parkes. He is buried, with his first wife, at Faulconbridge.

Statues - Henry Lawson

Dare I make a bold claim about Henry Lawson? He is a writer much derided in his own land, yet much loved as well. He has not translated into the modern age very well, hasn't our Henry. He was a product of this land, at that time - for much of the 19th century, the country called Australia did not exist. We were just a collection of independent states.

So the bold claim? Henry Lawson is to Australia as Mark Twain is the the United States. What about Banjo Paterson I hear the pundits splutter? Or C.J. Dennis or Adam Lindsay Gordon, or Henry Kendall I hear interjected from the bleechers!


Lawson almost single-handedly defined the mythical Australian in his landscape. He created the ideal of the sun-burnt battler humping his bluey around the outback blocks of this state, living off his wits and ever sus of them city-folk in their finery with their fancy ideas.


Lawson was prolific in the period before the demon drink got her claws into him. He was well served by George Robertson (of the booksellers, Angus & Robertson), and by J.F. Archibald (editor of The Bulletin). He also had Banjo looking out for his legal interests. Mainly two women, his mother and his wife, who always gave him curry. Every time Henry was locked in the clink or dead-drunk in the gutter, his mates would hand the hat around, and Henry would live to write another day.

Lawson's journal, exhibited in the Centenary '100' by the State Library of NSW

Try but two of his short stories: 'The Loaded Dog', and 'The Drover's Wife' to get the flavour of his definiton of life in this wide, brown land.

As for his poetry, I have already posted 'Faces in the Street', and 'One Hundred and Three'. Seek out 'The Roaring Days', and 'A Voice from the City'.

It is ironic that this statue puts Lawson on a pedestal - that is the last place he would want to be. But one calm, starry night wander through Sydney Hospital, across the Domain and down Mrs Macquarie's Road. Just as the loop divides, in the centre beneath a gum-tree, there you will find Henry, his dog, his mate and his swag ready to entertain you with ballads from a land that maybe no longer exists, if it ever did.

Portrait of Henry Lawson, painted in 1913 by Florence Rodway, held by the State Library of NSW

Trim, his master's faithful servant

Trim travelled with Matthew Flinders as he circumnavigated and mapped the coastline of Australia between 1801 and 1803 in HMS Investigator . When Flinders was imprisoned by the French in Mauritius during his return voyage to England, Trim shared his captivity.

Trim was black, with white paws, chin and chest. He was named after the butler in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, because Flinders considered him to be a faithful and affectionate friend whom he described as 'one of the finest animals I ever saw … a clear jet black, with the exception of his four feet, which seemed to have been dipped in snow and his under lip, which rivaled them in whiteness. He had also a white star on his breast.' The popularity of the statue has led to the library's cafe also being named after the cat.


There are a number of explorers important to the City of Sydney and the state of New South Wales, for example Captain Arthur Philip, Watkin Tench, Charles Sturt, John Oxley, Hamilton Hume, Blaxland&Wentworth&Lawson, George Evans, and Thomas Mitchell. I will not be able to locate statues of them all, but will keep my eyes peeled.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Mitchell Wing of the State Library of NSW, named after its generous benefactor, David Scott Mitchell. I will see what I am able to report back tomorrow of the festivities. It seems to be my second home at the moment.

Monochrome Weekend - Stepping into the unknown

Matthew Flinders was a remarkable explorer of the unknown great southern land for which he championed the name Australia. Standing outside the Mitchell Wing of the State Library in Macquarie Street, sextant in hand, this imposing statue of Flinders is a testament to an adventurous spirit who was dead at 40. Behind the statue, on a window-ledge, is a statue of Trim, his cat who sailed with him.

A member of the Monochrome Weekend community.