Hi. Look there are countless moments that make up the story of Australia
but every now and then there’s a special moment, a defining moment.
I’m Mikey Robbins and I’m here at the National Museum of Australia
to check out their project Defining moments in Australian history.
Look what we’re going to do is we’re going to go behind the scenes,
we’re going to check out some objects that tell the stories
about these moments, about who we are.
This just looks like a nice old clock but there’s more of a story to it.
This object relates to one of the defining moments in Australian history.
To help me explain it, I’ve got Karolina Kilian here from the Museum. Hi, Karolina.
Hello. Now this clock belonged to a very important person in the development of our country.
Indeed. The clock belonged to the Blaxland family.
And the two main players in that family in Australia were Gregory Blaxland and John Blaxland.
The story goes that John brought the clock over from England with him.
He came over on a ship he part owned so he had no luggage restrictions. That’s nice.
Right before he left he had sold off all of the family’s estates in England.
So his brother Gregory had arrived a year earlier and John had stayed on to sell the estate.
So anything the family had owned and wanted, to keep they had to bring over ...
John had to bring over with him.
So these were actually men of wealth? Yeah, they were indeed.
They were a very wealthy family. They had extensive landholdings.
Their father had served as a mayor locally
and his family had actually owned lands in the area for many, many decades.
Of course we know Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson for their journey of discovery,
so how important was it to break out of Port Jackson? It was very important.
The colony was very restricted in Port Jackson.
They were struggling to be fed really.
From the moment that Governor Macquarie came to Australia,
his main objective was to find a way to expand the crop productions to be able to feed the colony.
The mountains always posed quite a barrier for the colonialists.
For the Aboriginal people they had been crossing them for thousands of years ...
Of course, yes. They weren’t an issue.
But for the colonialists they could not figure out how to get past there
and be able to explore if possibly there was pasture that could be used.
It was really critical.
It became even more critical around this time when there was a big drought in the colony ...
I didn’t know that.
That made it a lot more kind of urgent that new lands were found
where crops could be grown but also cattle could be fed.
Seeing there are still members of the family alive, like the Blaxlands,
does that change the way you curate an object like this?
Well it’s made us curate this display differently
because we were able to source objects directly from the family.
So that was a great opportunity.
The clock we actually acquired from Darrell Blaxland, who’s the great-great-grandson of John Blaxland.
When you look at this object, how does it make you feel personally?
It symbolises kind of ... I guess the hopes that they had ...
It is a special item ... I’m sure it would have been for them.
It was made in 1718, and they didn’t bring it out here until 1807.
So it was already a very old clock by then? Exactly ...
and presumably it had been in their family the entire time,
so it was obviously something that was important to them emotionally
and as a family heirloom even already then.
The other thing that strikes me about it is just its beauty and its weight ...
It’s funny because it weighs 45 kilograms yet in appearance so delicate.
That’s probably how it managed to survive the passage. I am assuming ... is it mahogany?
It’s slate actually. Oh it’s slate. Yes. It must weigh a ton. It does.
The breaking out of Sydney Cove is the start of making modern Australia.
That’s why I think this object does signify a very defining moment in Australian history.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thanks for watching, but it doesn’t end here.
We want you to join in the conversation.
Go to the National Museum of Australia’s website ...
and let us know what you think are the defining moments in Australian history.
We’d love to hear your opinion.
Once again, thanks for watching. See you soon.