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Photo courtesy Airview Online.
and public health was the project that first
took her to the Quarantine Station. Aware
of the others’ work on aspects of the Station,
Clarke and Bashford began talking to each
other early in 2011 about collaborating on a
grant application.
“Our historical team will use
the information [recorded by the
archaeologists] about the ships, the
diseases, the people and work back
through the historical records to find out
We are using these inscriptions as a way into the
social, medical and national history of Australia
which ships were there, who the people
were, where they came from, how many
died, what their stories were, where they
went, tracing back in time and perhaps
forward in time. That is why we have called
this project ‘Stories from the Sandstone’,”
says Bashford.
“We are using these inscriptions as a way
into the social history, the medical history
and the national history of Australia.
“It is like a little portal into a long
history of Australian immigration.”
Australia’s class and racial politics,
and national policies such as the White
Australia Policy, are reflected in the
way internees were treated and in the
very design of the station. After wellconnected
passengers complained of
having to share accommodation with
second and third class travellers, for
example, the government built new First
Class buildings. Dedicated ‘Asiatics’
accommodation for Asian crew and
passengers was built in 1902 and turn-ofthe-century
posters depicted Asians as
disease-carrying pests.
The project team will create a
sophisticated interlinked digital database
that will include descriptions of the
inscriptions – their condition, what type of
16 mar 2013 SAM