Strands Of Time Tell The Story Of A Country's Golden Fleece

Sydney Morning Herald

Thursday July 12, 2007

Steve Meacham

Invaluable samples from Australia's merino history will soon be on show, writes Steve Meacham.

IN recent weeks a team of conservators has sifted through thousands of tiny samples that make up one of the great scientific treasures of Australian commerce. They are wool samples, taken from generations of cross-bred merino sheep over the past 110 years and charting the dramatic transformation of Australia's version of the golden fleece.

The Powerhouse Museum's 9000-strong collection is regarded as a unique national resource, a fascinating insight into how countless graziers and stud breeders developed a merino that powered the Australian economy.

And it is particularly treasured in this 200th anniversary year: in 1807 Samuel Marsden took a wine cask of Australian wool to the court of King George III to show the quality of fleeces the colony could produce - an event considered the birthdate of the Australian wool industry.

Yet this incredible collection - which provides a unique portrait of the gene flow which helped fund a nation - owes its existence to one determined man, Bill Montgomery, who died at the weekend in Newcastle.

Sandra McEwen, the leader of the Powerhouse's cataloguing program, says it was Montgomery - a wool classing lecturer in Newcastle - who saved 5000 of the samples in 1979.

According to McEwen, the museum's wool collection had been highly prized until the 1950s. "It took up half a floor at the old Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences."

But by 1973 the museum decided to sell most of it.

"Bill Montgomery pleaded," McEwen says. "He got on the train from Newcastle and stood on the steps of the museum and said, 'Don't do this."'

Eventually Montgomery persuaded the museum to ship the collection to Newcastle Technical College where he used it as a teaching aid. But when he retired, the college wanted to dispose of it.

"Bill was unwell and in hospital," says McEwen. "But he got out of hospital and moved it all to his garage. He couldn't get his car into his garage for the next 15 years."

In 2003, when Montgomery was diagnosed with prostate cancer, he rang the Powerhouse. Charles Massey, author of the definitive history of the Australian merino, likened the reappearance of the collection to "finding a Rembrandt in a garage".

"It came back to the museum in big plastic bags," McEwen says. "Each sample was identified only by spidery handwriting on little green labels. Until now we haven't had the resources to go through it and catalogue it properly."

That was made possible by a $83,000 grant from Australian Wool Innovation, a private company owned by wool growers, which was keen to mark the 200th anniversary. Shortly before he died, Montgomery's widow, Leone, said they were delighted his collection was finally being recognised. "This was Bill's whole life. His work and his love."

Some of the strands will feature in Fashion From Fleece, an exhibition of 30 woollen designs, which opens at the Powerhouse on July 25.

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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