BSR VIRTUAL EXHIBITIONS

Australia would not be quickly forgotten. Keen to share his experiences there, Ashby used his photographs of Australia and Sri Lanka to curate a lantern lecture for friends and associates. He stored its glass lantern slides in this wooden box. 
Notwithstanding the global disruptions caused by the War (1914 to 1918), a Flu Pandemic (1918 to 1920) and Great Depression (1929 to 1933), Ashby's early efforts to develop ties between the BSR and Australians slowly paid off. The first visitor was W. H. Bagot, who discussed establishing a scholarship for Australian architects with Ashby in January 1915, whilst they were touring the building site at Valle Giulia. After the new building opened in 1919, the first Australian scholar, Geoffrey E. Davis, began a three-month residency there (May to September). Many others followed him, including R. P. Cummings, who was the first to be awarded the Rome Scholarship for Architecture (1927). By then, a network of BSR alums from the UK and Italy, now extended across the globe to Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.   
In 1930, Ashby left Italy on another voyage to Australia and Sri Lanka (24 February to 14 May). This time, his wife May travelled with him on a lecture tour taking in six capital cities across Australia. During the return journey, the RMS Orontes skirted Direction Island, where the Emden's skeleton lay rusting on its beach. The following day (25 April 1930), the Ashbys joined 2,000 passengers on deck as they commemorated the fallen from the First World War. C. Brunsdon Fletcher describes the moment when the ship's engines fell silent at 11 am and it rolled gently with the swell of the Indian Ocean. Only then, the captain read Rudyard Kipling's 'Recessional' aloud, and after a two-minute silence, they sang 'O God, Our Help in Ages Past' with one voice (24 May 1930: 11).  
Afterword
Various BAAS scientists penned accounts of their experiences during these months. Despite being a prolific writer and storyteller, Ashby only wrote about them once. That was in a (now lost) letter to James Smith Reid from November 1914. All that remains of the account is Reid's reply to it. It was simply:  

'glad to hear you had a wonderful time on the other side of the world'

This exhibition is a record of Ashby's journey in 1914. Only now, we can see how a 'wonderful time' seeded a cross-institutional and transnational relationship between Italy, the United Kingdom, and Australia through their scholars, artists, architects and patrons. This relationship still flourishes a century after Thomas Ashby left the BSR.

Article: W. H. Bagot (1915). 'The British School at Rome'. The Salon: being the Journal of the Institute of Architects of New South Wales, 4.3: 106-107.
Article: C. Brunsdon Fletcher, 'On the Orontes: Anzac Day near the Emden' Sydney Morning Herald (24 May 1930). 11. 
Correspondence: James Reid Smith to Thomas Ashby, 21 December 1914. BSR Administrative Archive Box 518A.