O On the bank of the Parramatta River at the Western Sydney University campus, stands a red brick building that holds within its walls the story of Australia’s social history. Known as the Female Orphan School, it is the oldest three-storey masonry building in the country – Governor Lachlan Macquarie laid the foundation 204 years ago, on 24 September 1813. For some, it was a place of hope where orphaned girls could get an education and another shot at life. For others, it was a place of despair, which was undoubtedly the case for some patients at the Rydalmere Psychiatric Hospital. It is now a place of learning. The building is an important part of the National Estate, and so is the Gough Whitlam Collection that it houses. It’s a fitting meeting of the legacy of a modern, socially conscious former Prime Minister and a building, envisioned by enlightened nation builders, that was also ahead of its time. As a project of Governor Macquarie and his wife Elizabeth, the Female Orphan School was a priority work for the young colony in 1813 – its construction was equivalent to half of the NSW budget at the time. The Macquaries took a keen interest in the building, as did Gough and Margaret Whitlam around 200 years later. Gough died on October 21, 2014, and “right up to a few months before that he took an interest in what we were doing,” says former Whitlam Institute Director, Eric Sidoti, “one of his last public appearances was to come out to the Female Orphan School.” Although he was born in Melbourne, and later raised on Sydney’s Northshore, Gough was elected as representative for the Werriwa electorate in 1952. At the time, the area covered a whole swathe of land from the Sutherland Shire to Baulkham Hills – now seven electorates. “Gough was larger than life in every respect,” adds Eric. “He was an amazing and extraordinary man, and an extraordinary person.” “His government is remembered well here in the West because, after having his family in Cabramatta for many years, Gough knew how deprived these outer suburbs were. When he was elected, there was no secondary school in Western Sydney, no clinical hospital, and no sewerage system.” “There was very little road infrastructure and the Whitlam Government was the first elected Federal Government to pour money into urban development,” says Sidoti, adding that it was because of Whitlam that Western Sydney finally received a sewerage system. Eric laughs as he quotes former Premier Neville Wran, “It was said of Caesar Augustus that he found a Rome of brick and left it of marble. It can be said of Gough Whitlam that he found Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane unsewered, and left them fully flushed.” CULTURE 23