Australian Memory of the World Register

UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) program, begun in 1992, aims to preserve and promote humanity's documentary heritage by creating a shared record that reflects the diversity of languages, people and cultures around the world.

The Australian Memory of the World Register, run by a local committee, includes some of our country's most significant archival collections.

Margaret Lawrie, an amateur anthropologist, amassed a wealth of resources during her many stays in the Torres Strait due to the strength of the relationships with local people she developed over decades. It was due to these connections she was able to collect transcripts, audio recordings, photos, works of art and oral stories culminating in two publications: Myths and Legends of Torres Strait (1970) and Tales from Torres Strait (1972).

Segar Passi, who taught himself to paint as a child, was one of eight artists asked by Margaret Lawrie to record the history, culture, flora and fauna of the Torres Strait. He made more than 135 remarkably vivid watercolours for Lawrie's projects, depicting bird and marine life as well as stories that had been passed down to him by his elders on Mer (Murray Island). Passi is still a practising artist and cultural custodian for his people, teaching the next generation through stories and art.

This schematic drawing of a dugong, created by Margaret Lawrie, shows body parts numbered and named in Western Islands language.

This pencil drawing depicts a 'pom' trap, a device used to catch seagulls [serar] on Mer, or Murray Island.

The Manifesto of the Queensland Labour [sic] Party was written at a time of great social and political upheaval, as the Labor movement looked for alternatives to industrial action in order to progress its aims - political representation was the next natural step.

After being included in UNESCO's MoW Australian Register, this document was added to the MoW International Register in 2009, one of 6 Australian collections deemed to hold international significance.

Born of workers demanding access to better conditions and pay, the Manifesto laid out the workers' grievances with a particular focus on the most powerful people at the time: squatters, employers, the government and others. The Manifesto called for electoral and land reforms as well as social equality.

Written by Charles Seymour and signed by Thomas Glassey, who was also the first person to be elected to public office on a Labor party platform, the Manifesto came to State Library of Queensland as part of the Charles Seymour Papers (1880-1924). It is now one of the Library's 'treasure collections'.

The Tree of Knowledge, a ghost gum located outside the Barcaldine railway station, was where the workers of the 1891 Shearers' Strike met. While the strike ultimately failed, it had far-reaching effects. The Manifesto of the Queensland Labour Party was read out under this tree in 1892, helping cement the position of both as icons of trades unions and the Australian Labor Party. The tree, over 200 years old, was poisoned and killed in 2006.

State Library of Queensland holds the records of the Anzac Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland, established to explore options for the commemoration of the fallen soldiers in the recent Gallipoli campaign. The John Oxley Library holds the first minute book of the Committee and the program for the first Anzac Day memorial service held in Brisbane in 1916.

The minute book is a precious piece of our state's wartime history and suggests Queensland was the first state to observe an 'Anzac Day', settling on a formal structure and date with the hope others would follow.

These pages record the minutes of a meeting of the Anzac Day Commemoration Committee of Queensland, where a plan for how Anzac Day should be observed was adopted.

H.J. Diddams explained the symbolism on the cover of the Program, or Order of Service, for the first Anzac Day commemoration service held in Brisbane in 1916:

Also noticeable on the cover are representatives from the Army and Navy, a French soldier, an Indian Sikh soldier (also part of the British Army) and a New Zealand Māori soldier.

Canon David Garland, an Anglican clergyman and military chaplain during the First World War is believed to be the one who initially proposed a national day to honour the sacrifice of fallen soldiers during the Gallipoli landings. Garland had served with Australian troops in the Middle East in 1918-1919, returning to Queensland in 1920 and becoming Rector of Ithaca. Canon Garland was awarded on O.B.E. in 1934.

The Johnstone Gallery, a commercial gallery that operated in Brisbane from 1950 to 1972, had a reputation for brokering strong sales year after year for emerging and established Queensland and Australian artists of the era including Charles Blackman, Sidney Nolan, Donald Friend, Arthur Boyd, Ray Crooke, Margaret Olley, Lawrence Daws, Robert Dickerson and others.

Brian and Marjorie Johnstone's first gallery, the Marodian Art Gallery, opened in Brisbane's Upper Edward Street in December 1950. Less than two years later they relaunched their eponymous gallery in the basement of the Brisbane Arcade, before moving to the gallery's final location at their own home in Cintra Road, Bowen Hills in 1958.

The Johnstone Gallery was a major focal point of artistic and social life in Brisbane. When the Johnstones announced its closure, in their Christmas card of 1972, there was a very real sense of it being the end of an era. Their final exhibition was of sculptures by Leonard and Kathleen Shillam.

In 1994 Marjorie Johnstone bequeathed the Johnstone Gallery Archive to the Australian Library of Art, housed at State Library of Queensland. It is supported by the photographic collection of Arthur Davenport who documented artworks and installations at the Johnstone Gallery from 1964 until the closure in 1972. These collections are of national significance and were added to UNESCO's Australian Memory of the World Register in 2021.