Introduction to 'Writing Tenterfield'

Abstract

Genesis. This collection of essays has been so titled because of the central concern to focus the reader's attention on the fact that the aim throughout has been to produce a series of images of Tenterfield at the millennium - marking period and at the anniversary of Australian Federation. The resultant volume would seek various ways to explain the town and its more immediate region, the Shire, particularly to those coming from outside. The supporting and enabling funds, a SPIRT grant, were made available to produce a University of New England pilot project, one working with relevant 'industry' - in this case non-Federal Government bodies - that should lead later to like larger-scale regional research programmes. This greater task has now been taken on as policy by the subsequently funded Heritage Futures Research Centre, a collaborative research group, largely based within the University of New England's Faculty of Arts. This scholarly body has the general purpose to work with regional bodies to investigate, record, and publish research materials that will assist the region's own sense of its culture and development, and also lead to wider general understanding and recognition of all aspects of its distinctive heritage.