Warrnambool’s early pioneers will get a new lease on life after the historic honour board was trucked to Melbourne for restoration work.
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A campaign to raise $60,000 for the project was launched late last year with most of the money coming from philanthropic trusts and the rest from their adopt-a-pioneer initiative.
Specialist art technicians removed the 110-year-old board from its frame so it could be transported to the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at Melbourne University where it will remain for up to six months.
Warrnambool and District Historical Society president Janet MacDonald the old images would be taken out and scanned, and those with large cracks possibly replaced with copies while the originals are archived.
Ms MacDonald said the light conditions where the pioneer board had been kept at History House were not too bad, but the previous locations had taken their toll.
“Because over the years they’ve been in various locations, a lot of them would have been quite coloured originally and that’s gradually faded,” she said.
“You can see they have been worked over with pencil but a lot of that has faded.
“One of them has faded beyond recognition.”
The historical society is still hoping to raise another $5000 to help fund a book project to go with the restoration of the board.
It will include biographies of the 204 men on the board as well as the photographer behind the project, Lilian Foyle, and board instigator Edward Vidler.
Foyle Studios was commissioned to create the board in 1907 to celebrate 60 years since Warrnambool was founded.
Ms Foyle, Warrnambool’s first woman photographer, was given the job of producing the portraits, which featured only men.
A radical who championed women’s rights, Ms Foyle was very active in early women’s political groups and later married Federal Government Labor Senator Edward Findley.
She also produced the artwork on the pioneer board which features early scenes of Warrnambool.
Because the 200 pound cost of producing the board was not paid in 1907, it sat in the Foyle studios until the 1920s when half the cost of the project was finally paid and it was moved to the art gallery.