As part of this year's History Week theme: Memory and Landscapes, a special talk is being held at the Goulburn's Waterworks Museum on September 8 at 11am and 2pm.
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Volunteers from the original Fireman's Cottage Archives will be offering presentations and talks on some social history surrounding the Pumphouse and the Victorians who ensured the survival of the town.
The Waterworks will also be open and steaming from 10am to 3pm and tour guides will be taking visitors through the Pumphouse Museum, where they can experience two majestic working stationary steam engines.
The Waterworks illustrates how regional towns in NSW fought to get a safe source of water in the 1880s.
The Pumphouse is a fine example of Victorian/Georgian architecture. The Pumphouse, Appleby Bros Beam engine and Marsden Weir are of architectural and engineering national significance with the whole site being listed on the State Heritage and National Trust's Registers.
It is one of four, similar buildings constructed in regional NSW towns in the 1880's. The Appleby Bros Beam Engine, original to the Pumphouse, is fully restored and the only operational steam beam engine of its type in the Southern Hemisphere.
Of national significance, as well, is a Hick, Hargreaves & Co's horizontal engine. Although not original to the site, arriving in 1970, it is thought to be the oldest, surviving British engine to use a Corliss valve. Examples of electric pumping engines from the early and mid-20 century complete the display. The Pumphouse also houses static displays along its walls, with a collection of high quality, model steam engines.
The original Fireman's Cottage, built around the same time as the Pumphouse, is now used as an Archive and Research Centre. Amongst its collections are documents and plans into the original process that Goulburn Municipal Council-along with Bathurst, Albury and Wagga Wagga-had to go through to get a reticulated water supply. Archival material includes copies of the original 'Town and Country Water and Sewage Act' of the 1880's; which promised so much for towns that had a decent river system, but was found to be restrictive in its methods of paying back the colonial government for the cost of building, setting up and maintaining a piped, water supply.
Throughout the 1870's and 80's and into the 20th Century, the municipal council debates, the letters of protest to the government of the time and the editorials in both local and national newspapers became a major issue for Victorian's trying to get clean, reliable water.
There is research on the people who pushed through approvals for the buildings, the engineers who designed the reticulated water system and those who understood the need for additional, permanent water supplies.
Throughout all of this, the people involved delivered the first reticulated water supply to Goulburn. It meant mortality rates dropped, food supplies were assured, and the town prospered and grew.
The archives hold information on the people who kept the Pumphouse boilers fuelled and the engines in good working order, such as the first fireman Robert Geoghegan and first engineer Edward Woodhart. It holds rare architectural drawings for the designs of the Pumphouse.
The archival section of the Historic Waterworks Museum has only recently been added to the site and is not yet open to the public. However, individuals may contact the museum with requests for specific information on the people or history surrounding the Pumphouse and original Fireman's Cottage.
Goulburn's Historic Waterworks is a living museum, settled in its place on the edge of the Goulburn's main river, the Wollondilly River. It continues to evolve, remembering the past but making new history for the town, with major events such as the annual 'Steampunk Victoriana Fair' to be held this year on 19 and 20 October.
Groups arrive for tours. Individuals access its history. School children come and learn about Australia's heritage and the importance of place in shaping society. Weddings are celebrated there, and families hold reunions. Visitors wander the grounds to discover the heritage buildings. Community groups use the river and its history as a catalyst for courses and cultural events. Locals paddle or sit quietly under the trees. The site is a meeting place, much as it would have been used by the area's Indigenous communities before European settlement. It's European past still present and equally important to the community.
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