The Australian Garden History Society has built a significant national oral history collection of 80 recordings, with more in the pipeline. Interviews have been recorded in every state and the ACT (not yet in the Northern Territory). A large proportion of these have been transcribed or logged, and uploaded onto the AGHS website as well as also lodged in State or Territory libraries.
It is an imperative requirement of conditions of use – that any and all uses of the collection must appropriately acknowledge the interviewee, interviewer, date and Society’s collection.
For example: Bill Smith, interviewed 25 December 1903, by Mary Smith for the Australian Garden History Society’s National Oral History Collection.
Those not on the website that may be available for research purposes can be requested from the AGHS head office (info@gardenhistorysociety.org.au). Conditions for access and use of the interviews apply.
History of the collection
The Australian Garden History Society (AGHS) was formed in 1980. The following year, a Western Australian member, Oline Richards, wrote, ‘if you know any interesting garden people – designers, gardeners, nurserymen, owners, botanists – try to get them to record their experiences, memories, etc.’ (Journal of the Australian Garden History Society, Winter 1981, #2, p.12). The idea of doing oral history, in those days still a nascent practice for gathering historical evidence, had been planted.
It was not until 2002, ahead of the Society’s 25th anniversary in 2005, that the Society’s National Management Committee (NMC) commissioned an oral history program, ‘separate from the compilation of factual information about origins and ongoing activities’. A list of potential interviewees was compiled of people involved in the genesis of the Society, others who sustained its viability at national and branch levels, and some who had fostered a climate within the community that enabled the establishment of the Society.
Four interviews were recorded immediately in 2002, and another 21 by 2007. This initial project led to what is now an extensive and growing collection of oral histories conducted by AGHS volunteers or by professional oral historians whose services are paid from Branch funds. These interviews cover both the early history of the Society, as well as stories of the people who have contributed to garden history across the country.
Interviewees share much more than recollections about the Society’s beginnings, its conferences and publications. The varied reflections on the influences of childhood or family that engendered an interest in gardens, recollections of their own gardening practices, the impact of changing social and political environments, and the networking and informal mentoring that encouraged scholarship and research in the Society. This is a rich resource for scholars.