Norm Houghton (historian)
| Norman Houghton | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1948 (age 68–69) |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Citizenship | Australia |
| Engineering career | |
| Discipline | Historian |
| Institutions | Geelong Heritage Centre; Light Railway Research Society of Australia |
Norman Houghton (born 1948) is a historian and archivist in Geelong, Victoria, who has published over 30 books, many focusing on timber tramways and sawmills of the Otway and Wombat Forests of Western Victoria, Australia. Most of his works have been self-published, while he has provided numerous articles to the newsletter and journal of the Light Railway Research Society of Australia
Houghton grew up in Colac (in southern Victoria ) and attended Monash University, graduating in history. His interest in railway and forest history of Victoria's Otway Ranges was nurtured from an early age and resulted in his documentation and mapping of more than 300 sawmills and 160 kilometres of timber tramlines, which were built in the area from the 1850s to the mid 20th century.
Houghton worked at Sovereign Hill Historical Gold Mining Village and the Gold Museum in Ballarat and undertook assessment of the archives of the Queensland Railways, before operationally establishing the Geelong Heritage Centre as its foundation Director in 1979, where he held the role of archivist with the Geelong Historical Records Centre for many decades, and was instrumental in assisting the Geelong Historical Society to collate and compile records which formed the basis of the Heritage Centre archival collection.
Houghton's primary research on sawmills and timber tramways has been used as the basis for comprehensive assessments of the value of forest heritage sites, for example by the Victorian Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, for conservation management of heritage places, and also to further the investigation of domestic and spatial arrangements of isolated bush settlements. His publications include histories of the sawmills and tramways of the Wombat and Otway Forests and have been described as "...part of his substantial legacy ... of the lives led by timber-getters, road-makers, railway workers, farmers, and others in the communities that battled with the high rainfall, heavily timbered, and steep landscapes of this unique part of Victoria."
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