NRS-20727 | Farrer Memorial Oration by Dr Walter Lawry Waterhouse [Department of Agriculture]

Full description

This series is the preservation and reference copies from the original recording of the third Farrer Memorial Oration by Dr Walter Lawry Waterhouse.
The duration of the audio is 12 minutes, 26 seconds.

The recording was made in 1938 when Dr W L Waterhouse was the then Acting Professor of Agriculture, Sydney University. He was the recipient of the third annual Farrer Memorial Medal and was invited to make a speech on accepting the award. Waterhouse's research focused on the prevention of rust damage to wheat crops in Australia. (1)

The speech was the third Farrer Memorial Oration given and was sponsored by the Rural Bank of New South Wales. The title of the oration is ‘Some Aspects of the Life and Work of Farrer’.

The original recording, stored on a lacquer disc, was offered as a donation to the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) by the Farrer Memorial Trust. The Farrer Memorial Trust oversees the Farrer Memorial Research Scholarship Fund established in memory of William James Farrer, Plant Breeder. The Farrer Memorial Trust is managed by the NSW Department of Primary Industries.

The NFSA currently holds the original lacquer disc and provided State Archives with two digitised copies of the audio on CD-ROM.

Endnotes
1. Australian Dictionary of Biography, Waterhouse, Walter Lawry http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/waterhouse-walter-lawry-8993 (accessed January 27, 2015)