Off to See the Wizard - Alice Springs Day 3

I’m still running behind with my notes, but hopefully will catch up eventually.

Thursday was a day around town after our big day to the Palm Valley.  After doing more domestics we had another go at visiting the Women’s Museum of Australia.  We were very pleased that we didn’t try to cram it in half an hour the other day, as we ended spending over two hours there.  It is housed in the old Gaol, so it is a two in one place to visit.

This gaol was built in 1938 to house both male and female prisoners and was closed in 1996, when a new facility was built 25kms south of town.  After a fight by the locals it was saved from demolition and preserved as a community space.

The Women’s Museum is housed in what was the dining room.  There are some murals on the wall, painted by prisoners.

The display is broken into two parts.  The first is “Women at the Heart” which shares the history of the early pioneering women of central Australia.  These are six of the seven woman that lived here in 1903.

It is mainly story boards of the first women and how they travelled here, what work some did and the conditions in which they lived.  It certainly was a tough life and I take my hat off to them. I don’t think I would have lasted five minutes, that is if I had even managed the trip to get there.

The second part was “Ordinary Women Extraordinary Lives” which celebrated the first women in particular roles.  Some women broke into primarily male dominated roles many years ago, while others only surprisingly recently.

There was also a signature quilt signed by many prominent Australian Women.  Only about a third is on display and under controlled lighting as some of the signatures are fading.

There are a couple of familiar names here.

The next section of the complex is the male prison cells.

One cell had a fresco on the wall which was rather unexpected.

The Women’s section was a little different.  Initially it was just a building with three cells and an enclosed verandah all around.  As more inmates came along there was an extension built in the 1970s.

There is a video interview with the lady who was matron from 1955 to 1984.  She said they did’t judge the girls, the courts had done that.  Their role was just custodial.  Over time they made improvements, such as painting the cells pastel colours, starting to cook their own meals instead of them just being brought over from the men’s section.  They always referred to their cells as “rooms” not cells.  

Eventually, they convinced the powers to be to provide some cotton fabric in a few different colours and the girls made their own sleeveless dresses for their uniform, instead of the previous beige ones.  The girls designed them and they would be a pinafore during the colder months.  In the mornings they had their chores, but in the afternoons they could study or work on crafts.

They made patchwork quilts from donated dressmaking scraps to make their rooms more homely.

All in all, we both found the museums very interesting and well set out.

After lunch, we went to the Telegraph Station - the reason the town was created.

The telegraph station was established at the halfway point between Adelaide and Darwin.  

Water was a major concern and it was built close to a natural depression in the Todd River, which the founder named “Alice Spring” after Alice Todd, the wife of Charles Todd, who was the South Australian Superintendent of Telegraphs.

The station was opened in 1872 and was one of 11 staffed repeater stations on the Overland Telegraph Line.  The line consisted of a single strand of iron wire on 36,000 timber poles, stretching 3,000kms from Adelaide to Darwin, from where there was already a submarine cable beneath the sea to Singapore.  News from Britain which prior to 1872 would take 3 months to reach Australia by sea now arrived within a few hours.

It was all sent by Morse Code.

The timber poles were eaten out by termites, so replacement metal poles were imported from Holland.

As more people moved to the area with the gold rush, a new town was created at the site of the current town of Alice Springs, a few km south of the Telegraph Station.  Also, as technology improved the station was no longer required.  The buildings were then used as “The Bungalow” a home for half caste children, being children with an aboriginal parent and a non-aboriginal parent, with the intention to educate them and adopt European customs. This was part of the stolen generation.  The station was used for this purpose from 1932 until 1941.  During WWII it was used by the military.  After that it fell into disrepair until 1963 when it was handed over to the NT Reserves Board and restoration commenced.

While we were there a lot was happening, as things were being set up for a dinner for travellers on the Ghan train. It would have been an interesting place to enjoy a meal.