Hello! My name is Chris Dawson and this is my little website about Brisbane's historic Boggo Road Gaol and a bunch of other stuff that occasionally grabs my attention from the pages of history.
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| Me, gallows beam, Boggo Road, 2005. |
What gives me the bloody right?
I was never an officer or a prisoner (and I'm always a bit sheepish admitting that to those with a 'real' experience of prison life) but I was the volunteer curator at the Boggo Road Gaol Museum, which involved me looking after the museum collection, designing and installing displays, conducting historical research, writing books, and too many other things to list here. I also established the not-for-profit Boggo Road Gaol Historical Society in 2003 and have served on the management committee ever since. I have a degree in Anthropology and a postgraduate diploma in Applied History, both from the University of Queensland, and am a graduate member of the Professional Historians Association (Qld). I am also on the Council of the National Trust of Queensland.
What's so special about prison history?
I'm not particularly obsessed with prisons or anything, and won't pretend to be, but I do love the process of researching and then creating publications, exhibitions, websites, tours, articles, essays, etc, from that research. Living just across the street from the prison made it logical subject matter, and it has grown on me ever since.If I had to have a Mastermind 'specialised subject' it would be capital punishment in Queensland, although there are other subject areas (cemeteries, suburban growth in early southern Brisbane) that I have done a lot of work on. Having said that, prison history is inherently interesting because of the conflict that runs through it on almost every level. Conflict is the secret ingredient of all good drama, and Boggo Road has it in spades.
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| But not all conflict creates good drama. |
In these articles you might sometimes notice a strong dose of skepticism and intolerance for pretentiousness that comes from having been brought up on a council estate in the north of England. Here in Brisbane there is a lot of drivel being passed off as actual history, and never has so much guff been spouted by so few. There's a lot of damage can be done to the heritage of a place by people warping the history.
We in the BRGHS make a point of pointing out the drivel, and have found that when we do so we have been subject to attempted bullying, bizarre threats and abuse. I know there are measures that struggling businesses might take to bring in the $$$, but acting like the Kray twins ain't allowed in local history! It doesn't work on us anyway, so sometimes the Boggo Blog articles take on a combative tone you don't normally see much in local history.
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| Take that, incorrect historical fact! |
Stuff about me that nobody gives a damn about
...except my mum. Married to Andrea, four kids ranging from kindy to university age. Lives in southside Brisbane. 'Varied' work and study background (left school at 15, dental technology, mayonnaise production, data entry, banana plantations, parenting, factories, warehouses and supermarkets, museum curator... the list goes on). Half my life lived in England, half in Australia (with a bit of Israel sandwiched in between). I'll leave the likes and tastes out, because its not a dating website.
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| The kind of pose that newspaper photographers make you do. |
The End.
