A PAINTED silk banner, which dates back to the formation of the Gawler Institute committee, will be put on display once again due in part to the community’s support.

On Monday, Gawler Cultural Heritage Foundation Inc chair Helen Hennessy, presented community donations totalling almost $3000, to Gawler Mayor Karen Redman.

The funds will cover half the costs associated with works to repair and preserve the banner, which have been carried out by Artlab Australia over the past few months.

Ms Hennessy said the banner was assessed as a rare example of banner work and in remarkable condition for its age, but in need of conservation work before it could safely be placed on exhibition.

“There is a phrase on it ‘it is good to be merry and wise’ and it seems to encapsulate everything (the institute committee) did; as a cultural and educational organisation they really drove that early self-improvement in Gawler,” she said.

“It was a time when people did banners and it was put out also for a couple of the royal visits and would have been first hung over the Oddfellows Hall, because that’s where the institute started from.

“It symbolises that long history of the institute and I think visually it is an interesting thing.”

The banner has been stored away and not seen by the community for many years but is proposed to be a major feature in an upcoming exhibition of the Gawler Civic Centre’s Heritage Gallery, in July.

The exhibition, titled ‘Fire the Cannon’, will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the laying of the Gawler Institute building’s foundation stone in 1870.

Recent works has seen the banner undergo humidification to relax creases, have splits in the silk stabilised with support patches, and have its cotton and wool ties unknotted, flattened and encapsulated in a fine nylon net.

A speciality mounting board has been created for the banner so that it can safely be displayed.