Rural inventors change lives with objects and cultural practices

No – it was the new fang-dangled invention known as the Nicholson back delivery combined reaping and mowing machine. This reaper revolutionised grain production as this saw-toothed cutter could slash a 1.2-metre swathe in one pass.

A single horse pulled the reaper while the driver controlled the height of the cutters through the crop. This maneuverable and speedy technology changed forever the face of cropping and harvesting and the machine in the photograph is believed to be one of the earliest examples of mechanised harvesting equipment to survive in the Riverina.

As pioneers moved into the various regions of the colony of New South Wales, they were confronted with unfamiliar and sometimes impassable bush, very different from the landscapes they’d left behind in the “Old Country”.

This new land had to be tamed and originally, it was the horse, axe and fire that cleared the native vegetation, so clear ground could be created for familiar crops.

The mouldboard plough was a game-changer in the cereal growing sector in the early 1890’s to the extent that, not long after its invention by Wagga Wagga blacksmith and engineer, John Whitlock, the Riverina was producing 10 per cent of the colony’s wheat.

This invention enabled thousands of acres of land to be easily ploughed so more greater areas of cereal crops could be planted which, in turn, brought great prosperity in years with plentiful rain to those farming families.

This exhibit is just one of the many inventions featured in the exhibition “Talking Machines’ collected over 11 regional museums across the Riverina, demonstrating the ingenuity of pioneers and settlers into what was often regarded as “forbidding territory”.

Talking Machines reaches across generations to give a voice to dormant farm machinery and capture the story of Australia's industrial past. Forty-three videos capture the machines that transformed Australia's agricultural production across the 19th and 20th centuries.

“Although many of the actual machines were imported from elsewhere and utilised here, there were many designed and manufactured in the Riverina, which were sold and used in other countries,” explained Luke Crealy, Museum of the Riverina’s manager.

“The value of this history is so important for all ages and they can see footage of these long-retired machines at work digging, cutting, shearing, sorting and harvesting. Each video has information from people who still remember using them, as they recount how the Riverina's landscape was turned into a food bowl,” Mr Crealy said.

“Learning about the industrial revolution in Australia is almost old hat these days, but is necessary for students to see and understand the contexts of it. To make this exhibition relevant, accompanying the films are education resources targeted at years nine and 10 history students, as the resources tie in with the Australian National Curriculum.”

It wasn’t only machinery and on-farm items that were created out of necessity and scarcity. Pioneering and country women were a hardy, frugal and inventive lot, too, and their innovations and daily practices also are recorded in the Talking Machines exhibition.

“I grew up near Tumbarumba in an old house which had no running water, electricity, a small kitchen and two bedrooms for a family with five children,” said Ursula O’Brien. These days that house would be called primitive, but my mother always had food on the table and we kids learned from watching and helping her.

“There wasn’t a bathroom and every Saturday, Mum would fill a large tub with slightly warm water and we’d have a sponge bath.

“As all our water was stored in three tanks, we had to be very careful with how we used it. If it ran out because we didn’t have rain, we had to live with that,” she said.

The participating museums include the Batlow Museum, Cootamundra Heritage Centre, Greens Gunyah in Lockhart, Junee Broadway Museum, Museum of the Riverina, Wagga Wagga, Pioneer Women's Hut in Tumbarumba, Temora Rural Museum, Tumut Museum, Weethalle Whistle-stop Arts Centre and Museum, Wyalong Museum, and The Up-to-Date Store, Coolamon.