In 1962 William Hudson Shaw, a Qantas executive, knocked at the door of a cottage in the seaside village of Walmer, Kent. Shaw was in the grip of an obsession – a ‘labour of love’ to document the ‘true story’ of Australian aeronautical pioneer Lawrence Hargrave.[1] This quest had brought Shaw to the home [...]
discontents
working for the triumph of content over form, ideas over control, people over systems
inventions
A wartime observatory observed
Ben Gascoigne, a young New Zealand physicist, stepped off the train at Canberra station. It was August 1941. A tall, good-looking man strode across the platform to greet him.
‘Woolley’ he said, offering his hand, ‘Do you play bridge?’.
That evening Ben Gascoigne found himself seated at a bridge table in Woolley’s residence at the Commonwealth Solar [...]
Scienceworks
As a suburban teenager, one of the highlights of my school holidays was a trip into ‘town’. This expedition into the wilds of central Melbourne always included a wander around the Science Museum, then housed snugly with the National Museum and the State Library behind the imposing columns of 328 Swanston Street.
Naturally I pressed all [...]
