Published Resources Details
Conference Paper
- Title
- Engaging with Leviathan: a Historian's Perspective on Using the Scientific Archives of the Department of Defence
- In
- Recovering Science: Strategies and Models for the Past, Present and Future: Proceedings of a Conference Held at the University of Melbourne, October 1992
- Imprint
- Australian Science Archives Project, Canberra, 1995, pp. 51-56
- Url
- https://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/confs/recovering/morton.htm
- Subject
- History of Australian Science - General
- Format
- Description
And HTML
- Abstract
When we think of the history of science in Australia, we think at once of the CSIRO; of the universities; of our other big public research institutions. But this is to forget another important sector of scientific enterprise. I am referring to the research establishments controlled by the Department of Defence. These have made a contribution in certain special areas of technology, and not only in the overtly military area. Their archives are remarkably extensive and complete, though gaining access to them is another story.
One of these defence science archives is particularly important. The residue of a most colourful and secretive scientific enterprise, it was generated by the work at a research centre in Salisbury, north of Adelaide, and at Woomera, the rocket range town in the far outback of South Australia. Under a blunt name the Weapons Research Establishment this centre was set up just after World War II, jointly financed by the Chifley government in Australia and the Attlee government in Britain. It still exists under the more anodyne name of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), though the British have long since withdrawn, its functions have altered somewhat, and it has now lost control of Woomera itself.
- Source
- Carlson 1996
Related entries
Corporate Bodies
- Australian Science Archives Project, The University of Melbourne (1985 - 1999)
- Commonwealth Defence Science Organisation
- Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), Commonwealth of Australia (1974 - )
- Department of Defence, Commonwealth of Australia (1942 - )
- Weapons Research Establishment, Commonwealth of Australia (1955 - 1978)
Themes
Related Published resources
hasCitationTo
- Morton, Peter, Fire across the desert: Woomera and the Anglo-Australian Joint Project 1946 - 1980 (Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1989), 575 pp. Details
isPartOf
- Recovering Science: Strategies and Models for the Past, Present and Future: Proceedings of a Conference Held at the University of Melbourne, October 1992 edited by Sherratt, Tim; Jooste, Lisa; Clayton, Rosanne (Canberra: Australian Science Archives Project, 1995), 124 pp, https://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/confs/recovering/contents.htm. Details