Their contribution to building Canberra after World War II was immense, but their place in the city’s history has been minimal.
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A modest piece of signage marks where they were and what they achieved. But Canberra historian Alan Foskett believes the workmen who built the heart of the nation’s capital deserve more.
This weekend he will launch They Came to Build Canberra: The Story of the Turner Workmen’s Hostel – the People, the Buildings and the Land 1946 to 2014.
“I thought that the only way I can preserve the legacy of those hostels and the role that the men played was to write a book, which would be a lasting legacy of the hostels,’’ Mr Foskett said.
“The thing that really got me going on this was the demolition of McGregor Hall in 2010,’’ he said.
McGregor Hall was the last remnant of the Turner Workmen’s Hostel, the last of the seven workmen’s hostels that were built in Canberra after World War II.
“They were built to accommodate mostly single men, from all over the world and all over Australia who came here and helped get the building industry and the building of Canberra going,’’ Mr Foskett said.
The hostels were scattered across Canberra and included two at Capital Hill, one near the railway station in Kingston, another at the east basin of Lake Burley Griffin with others at Ainslie, Fairbairn and Turner.
The Turner hostel closed in 1952 and fire tore through it the following year. But part of it remained – McGregor Hall. It would be used by various groups over the years and became a powerful link to the past. That link was severed in 2010 when it was demolished by the ACT government.
“It had this incredible history,’’ Mr Foskett said.
‘‘Not only the use of the site as a hostel, but all the subsequent uses of the buildings and the site itself.
“It is just one of those extraordinary bits of urban history where from 1946 until today there had been these different uses of the building and the site, starting off with the hostel and the role that they played.’’
There were 360 men accommodated at Turner in seven blocks or pavilions from 1949 to 1952, and they gave the building industry in Canberra impetus after the war, Mr Foskett said.
They Came to Build Canberra: The Story of the Turner Workmen’s Hostel – the People, the Buildings and the Land 1946 to 2014 by Alan Foskett will be launched at the Hughes Community Centre on Sunday at 2pm.