When Teddy was awarded Australia’s Victoria Cross in 2020, Minister Guy Barnett MHA offered Latrobe Council $50,000 for a life-sized Edward Sheean VC statue. Council accepted this offer with the statue to be installed at the existing Memorial site in Gilbert Street. Council did delay the project (and receipt of these funds) until the flood mitigation culvert was formed, as it would impact the Sheean VC Memorial site. Council did not deem it to be fiscally responsible to install something that then needed to be reinstated.
Due to various factors, the flood mitigation culvert works took a little longer than expected to commence.
Pre-empting a mid-2023 completion of the culvert installation, Council engaged with the community to forward their ideas for a reimagined, nationally significant memorial precinct at Latrobe, Tasmania, to commemorate HMAS Armidale (I), particularly its brave crew that died and survived the ship’s sinking by an enemy attack on 1 December 1942, with an emphasis on the actions of Edward “Teddy” Sheean VC. This was in December last year.
Council planned to leverage off the $50,000 allocation from the State Government plus allocate $100,000 towards the project in the 2023-24 Budget. The application would then seek matching funding of $150,000 from the Commonwealth Government through the Saluting Their Service grant fund.
That grant fund closed on 7 February however the period for community consultation was through to 31 March. Consequently, Council could not specify the application's final design and construction costings but indicated that we would cut our cloth to suit. This was deemed insufficient by the selection panel and our application was refused on this basis as well as their advice that they would not fund the individual component of Edward Sheean VC.
Those that submitted their ideas were informed of this funding decision by email, and the broader community was advised in Council’s July-August newsletter. This advice stated that Council intended to continue progressing with an appropriate HMAS ARMIDALE Memorial design, including critical elements of submissions, in a further application for Commonwealth funding but was unlikely to be undertaken in the 2023-24 financial year.
With the inability to include the life-sized statue at the existing Sheean VC Memorial in future applications, Council has requested the State Government’s committed $50,000 to progress this component.
Consequently, Council has included $30,000 of the initial $100,000 in its 2023-24 budget for works at the Sheean Memorial. These works include -
- greater exposure of the Memorial with the removal of vegetation;
- improved awareness of the Memorial with a change of concrete colour that will eventually have the words Sheean VC Memorial stencilled into it;
- exposed aggregate around the base of the monument that complements the cylindrical monument surface;
- the reinstatement of seating and plaques around the Memorial and
- replanting at the Memorial.
With the replanting, Council will be incorporating elements that the community suggested for the overall concept, including undulating garden beds to symbolise the waves of the Timor Sea and the start of a series of trees in raised pots along the eastern boundary that will eventually be equivalent in number and represent those that survived the sinking of HMAS Armidale.
Teddy’s sacrifice impacted the lives of all on board HMAS ARMIDALE, and the Council wants to share that complete story in our future application for Commonwealth funding to create an appropriate Memorial of National Significance. Council will allocate additional funds as part of our future application for a Saluting Their Service grant.