In 2009, a hall at the Stroud School of Arts in Dungog, Australia revealed an engaging secret: a hand-painted silk banner from the 19th Century. Two years later the banner wound up in the collection of the Newcastle Museum where David Hampton would eventually find it and begin unravelling it's fascinating history. Made in London by Tutill and Company, it was the pride and joy of Williams River Lodge of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows. The banner would have been carried by multiple members in parades and served as a strong reminder to the community that Odd Fellowship was a reliable bulwark against the vagaries of life.
The banner was used by the lodge at least up until the late 1940s, when membership was still nearly 650 members. Eventually the lodge folded and the hall became part of the local school, at which time the banner was moved and stored under the floorboards in a hall at the Stroud School of Arts. Mostly forgotten at that point, it came into the collection of the museum in Newcastle who raised money and sent it on to Sydney where some restoration work was done to preserve it for future generations. The banner is remarkable both in the condition it survived in, and for the incredible craftsmanship and artistry with which it was made.
David Hampton, curator of the Newcastle Museum, joins us to tell the remarkable story of the banner and how it reflects nearly a century of changes in the social and fraternal life of Australia. Along the way we hear about what life was like for the emigrants to Australia in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and how groups like the Odd Fellows provided essential assistance and also they paralleled labor union and other trade organizations of the time.
There is no lodge Shoutout in this episode (please feel free to contribute nominations) but in the Odd Podge Ainslie shares about his new eBay score, a clay Odd Fellows' pipe, and Toby asks David about the Somerton Man (Tamam Shud) case to see if he has any background on it.