Summary

Australian passport belonging to Lindsay Motherwell. It was issued in 1986, and expired in 1996. It contains a colour photograph of Lindsay. It also contains details of his travels through Asia in the 1980s. Lindsay was a drummer from Melbourne who travelled through Africa in the 1950s and 60s and then worked as a cane importer from Asia from the 1970s onwards.

Sylvia Boyes (a South African-born orphan) and Lindsay Motherwell (a Melbourne-born drummer) met in Cape Town, South Africa in 1967 through their theatre connections. They fell in love but due to apartheid laws were forced to leave South Africa to marry in London. They subsequently relocated permanently to Melbourne in 1970.

Physical Description

Australian passport containing personal details and a colour photograph. It states that he was born on 1 January 1927 in Melbourne Australia. It also contains entry and exit stamps from Melbourne, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.

Significance

Statement of Historical Significance:
This collection provides a significant opportunity to represent political and personal freedom as a motivation for migrating to Australia within the international context of both apartheid in South Africa and the end of the White Australia policy in Australia. The personal narrative is well documented and the objects provide a material way to follow the lives of both Lindsay and Sylvia, both separately and where they coincide in South Africa and onwards together to Melbourne. While this is ultimately a love story, it plays out through the collection against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa, sixties London and an increasingly multicultural Australia.

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