An important archive of Australian brewing and hotel industry history has been added to the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register, thanks to a successful joint bid by Powerhouse and The Australian National University’s Noel Butlin Archives.
The Tooth and Company Collections form the most significant and complete publicly accessible documentation of Australia’s brewing and hotel industries in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
The archive’s inclusion in the Australian Register highlights its significance to Australian social history through its documentation of businesses, regional communities, architecture and society.
The archival collections present the growth of local manufacturing that resulted in colonial NSW’s reduced reliance on British imports and the evolution of the local brewing industry prior to its decline in the late 20th Century.
Powerhouse acquired the Tooth and Company Collection in late 1986 with assistance from the Australian Government’s Taxation Incentive for the Arts Scheme. The collection featured paper-based archival material, photographic material, brewing equipment and ephemera and was used extensively in a foundation exhibition entitled Brewing and Pubs.
Highlights from the extensive Powerhouse Collection include a collection of architectural drawings gifted to Powerhouse by Tooth and Co architect George Tickelpenny in 1998, a Tooth and Co advertising sign, plans and drawings from 1930–1940 by architect Cyril Christian Ruwald, photographs from 1890–1985 and an archive of work produced by Sidney Warden, the most prolific of several architects commissioned to produce hotel designs for Tooth and Company.
Powerhouse Chief Executive Lisa Havilah says: "Powerhouse is proud to stand with the ANU Noel Butlin Archives to join the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register, which recognises the importance of documenting key moments in Australia’s history.”
University Archivist at The Australian National University Kathryn Dan says: "The ANU Archives is honoured to have another collection inscribed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Register. The Tooth & Company collections held by the ANU Archives and Powerhouse tell the story of Australian society through the major industry of brewing and hotels.
"The documentary heritage we hold connects with Australians in many communities, so it is critical we preserve it. Everyone knows a pub: it is either their ‘local’ or a piece of architecture in their community.”
The Australian Register is part of a worldwide system of registers of significant documentary heritage that operate under the auspices of the UNESCO Memory of the World Program.
Founded in 2000, the Australian Memory of the World Program is one of more than 60 Memory of the World programs globally. Important historical documents that are part of the Australian Register include the Endeavour Journal of Captain James Cook, the Mabo Case Papers, the Convict Records of Australia,?The Story of the Kelly Gang?film and the 1892 Manifesto of the Queensland?Labour? Party.
Powerhouse developed a presence on the Australian Register through the inclusion of the Lawrence Hargrave Archive and Collection in 2004. As part of the Powerhouse Collection and Digitisation Project, the Tooth and Company Archive was assessed, documented, conserved and digitised.
