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Shadows of Wire:
Hunter Stories of the Great War 1914-1918
The Newcastle Regional Museum 
is the largest
non-metropolitan museum in the State and is run by the
Newcastle City Council. This Museum has an excellent
exhibition on World War One entitled Shadows of Wire:
Hunter Stories of the Great War, 1914-1918.
Contents
The Exhibition
When Britain declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, all the member countries of the British Empire, Australia and Canada amongst them, were automatically at war too. The Australian government was not constitutionally obliged to take any steps at all to support Britain, and could have remained simply an observer except in the event of an attack on Australian territory. Nevertheless, the government of Joseph Cook immediately set about raising the first contingent of 20 000 men to be known as the Australian Imperial Force (A.I.F.). By the end of the First World War in 1918, more than 400 000 Australian men and women had joined the A.I.F., of whom 330 000 were sent overseas. It is estimated that 11000 members of this force were people from Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.
The major permanent exhibition dealing with the First World War opened at Newcastle Regional Museum in April 1996. It was relocated from an annexe building to the main building in 2003. Shadows of Wire: Hunter Stories of the Great War 1914 – 1918, is based upon research by Museum staff over a period of three years, during which time they collected numerous diaries, letters and artefacts, interviewed surviving participants and developed a database of 3 238 names of local people who played a part in the war, whether as civilians or members of the military.
Upon entering the exhibition area, the visitor is confronted with an uncaptioned “object collage” consisting of a wheelchair, items of uniform and personal effects including photographs, an ashtray and an empty beer bottle. No interpretation of these objects is offered - it is left to the visitor to create the story in the light of their existing knowledge and what they are about to experience in the exhibition. The visitor follows the experiences of Australians through their training in Egypt, The Middle East, the Gallipoli campaign and the war on the Western Front, the experience of nursing the wounded and being a patient, and finally the war as experienced in Australia itself, from private homes to commerce and industry, and the aftermath when soldiers came home.
The Forgotten Soldiers
In the exhibition a special effort has been made to articulate the experiences of parts of the population whose involvement in the First World War and indeed in other conflicts tends to be understated or ignored altogether. The Defense Act in force at the outbreak of war stated that Aboriginals, half-castes, or men of Asiatic blood are not to be enlisted. As the war progressed, however, the A.I.F. relaxed entry rules, and it is estimated that over one hundred men of Aboriginal descent from New South Wales alone served in the First World War. Upon their return to Australia, these soldiers once more suffered the full weight of racial prejudice enshrined in the White Australia policy. They were denied the right to vote, and were not granted the full range of benefits that other returned soldiers received, such as settlement blocks of land.
The Role of Women
The role of women is dealt with both on the home front and as members of the military. Although only a tiny component of the entire Imperial force, the 2700 Australian women who joined British or Australian military nursing units were significant as the vanguard of female membership of the armed forces. Although women from other Allied countries were accepted for a range of support roles such as driving, nursing was the only role which women were permitted to fill in the Australian forces, in spite of the efforts of women's advocates such as Maitland-born Eleanor Jacob, who established the Australian Women's Service Corps to train women for non-combat roles. At least seventy women from the Hunter Valley joined the Australian Army Nursing Service or the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve. Their story is told through photographs and their personal effects. They include six women who were awarded the Royal Red Cross, a decoration which was awarded for exemplary service in military nursing.
The story of the voluntary patriotic efforts of many women on the home front is well known. In fact, it is easy to get the impression that every Australian woman spent the entire four years knitting socks or running cake stalls ! But this is almost certainly a view that applied mainly to relatively affluent women with paid help and a position to maintain in the community. The local president of the many Red Cross branches set up in the Hunter in the early weeks of the war was invariably the mayoress, and her committee tended to consist of the wives of prominent business men. In 1994, Tom Sweeney of Belmont was interviewed for the exhibition. Tom was ten years old in 1914, the son of a miner and one of a family of seven. When asked about his mother's involvement in knitting socks and providing comforts for the troops, he pointed out that with such a large family she only had time to make things for her eldest son Jack who had enlisted. She was probably typical of many women of working class families.
State of the Art Presentation
During the course of developing the exhibition, 1576 photographs relating to the war experiences of Hunter people were brought into the Museum by members of the public. The exhibition team was faced with the problem of how to use this material without overcrowding the exhibition. The solution was to scan all the photographs before returning them to the lenders, to create an indexed database. This means that visitors can access these photographs at two computer stations in the exhibition, searching either by themes - e.g. "trenches", "Gallipoli" -, or by the wording in the captions such as names of individuals. The computer stations also give access to a database of 3238 records of the war service of men and women from the Hunter who joined the A.I.F. or other Allied units.
Coming Home
Personal stories are the keynote to the exhibition, this is particularly pertinent in the section which deals with the homecoming and the sense of disillusionment of returned men, many of whom were unable to settle back into civilian life either because of the psychological effects of their war experiences, the inability to find work or lack of support and understanding from other Australians. Especially moving is the story of Harry Morgan who, although gassed during the war and in poor health, was denied a pension on his return to Australia. He worked as best he could as a carter, and trained his children to work as entertainers and acrobats to supplement the meagre family income. His widow was finally granted a pension in 1937, two years after his death.
Although illustrated by the experiences of people from the Hunter Valley, Shadows of Wire has more than just a regional relevance, as those experiences were common to many other Australians. Visitors to the Shadows of Wire will gain a greater appreciation of the impact of this war on those who took part directly, and those who supported them.
The Museum is open Tuesday – Sunday 10am-5pm. During school holidays it is open every day and it is open on public holidays. Entry is free of charge.
Contact Details:
Telephone: (02) 4974 1400 / international
+61 2 4974 1400
Facsimile: (02) 4974 1405 / international
+61 2 4974 1405
E-mail : nrmuseum@ncc.nsw.gov.au
or to send e-mail to all museum staff allmus@ncc.nsw.gov.au
Written and photographic material are copyright of Newcastle Regional Museum. They are reproduced here with their kind permission.
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