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Memorialising war: how the hills honoured their WW1 Diggers
How Australians memorialise wars and conflicts in a physical sense has shifted over the years and continues to change. In the hills after World War 1, as elsewhere, settling on an appropriate memorial sometimes itself became another deeply contested terrain.
This story, up to the early years of the 21st century, is told fully in the late Ken Inglis’s spectacular piece of scholarship, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape, first published in 1998, with a third updated edition published in 2008.
Even before the Great War Armistice was signed, communities in Australia had set about the task of commemorating all those who had served and died in a war from which 60,000 Australians would never return.

The Kennons

Tram tracks into the forest (and other shattered dreams)

‘Driven to a diet of potatoes and water’: A cry for help from the forest in 1896

Outs: The Excursionists Guide from Melbourne 1868

Dr Harry Sloggett brought whiffs of sea air and scandal to the hills

Love Letter to the Dandenongs: A charming letter from Mrs Gwynnivere (Vere) Frazer