Dress Rehearsals for the First World War

Finding an Australian Military Uniform 1885-1914. Presented by Craig Wilcox.
Part of the History & The Meaning of Things 2012 Seminar Series on History & Material Culture

Khaki and slouch hats seem so Australian that it’s hard to wind back the clock to the moment around 1885 when they could seem barbaric and foreign—or, for that matter to the year 1900, when they were so much a part of global military reform that the French army considered adopting them.

In an illustrated talk, drawing on photographs and uniforms from Museum Victoria’s collections, Craig Wilcox will discuss the evolution of the Australian military uniform, examining what the long and controversial process reveals about Australians and war a century ago.

Find out how some Australians made a national military uniform out of clothing peddled by British officers. How others insisted that red or blue coats remained the ‘real’ military dress, and how Irish and Scottish ethnic communities sought to raise their own regiments clothed in emerald green tunics or tartan kilts.

Craig Wilcox is a Sydney-based freelance historian with a particular interest in Australia’s military history. His experience includes periods working at the Australian War Memorial and as a fellow at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies in London. He is currently an honorary Associate of the Centre for Historical Research at the National Museum of Australia. His publications include Home Front: Australians in World War I (2012), Red Coat Dreaming: how colonial Australia embraced the British army (2009), and Australia’s Boer War (2002).

Free entry. Please book to reserve a seat
For email bookings reply to: rsvphumanities@museum.vic.gov.au
For phone bookings, inquiries or other information contact:
Matthew Churchward, Senior Curator, Humanities Department
Phone: 8341 7253 or 0407 096 586 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting FREE 0407 096 586