A tale of three Churchill Fellows’ recovery and restoration journey
The Hannah Cabinet, widely regarded as Australia’s most significant piece of contemporary decorative furniture, would never have existed without a Churchill Fellowship. In 1980, master craftsman Geoffrey Hannah OAM travelled to England and France to study the great furniture collections of Versailles, the Louvre, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Those months spent closely observing royal cabinets, marquetry and gilding techniques became the foundation for his own masterpiece back home in Lismore.
Six and a half years of painstaking work followed. The Hannah Cabinet was built from 34 different timbers and veneers, inlaid with four rare shells and 17 varieties of precious and semi-precious stones. It holds 18 doors, 140 drawers and a scattering of hidden compartments, each with its own tiny key. For visitors, it was a marvel. For the people of Lismore, it became something more: a symbol of local pride and ambition.
In 2016, the regional community raised over $1 million to keep the Cabinet in Lismore’s public collection. It became the jewel of the Lismore Regional Gallery, drawing visitors from across Australia to a regional city that proudly claimed it as its own.
Then the floods came.
In 2022, catastrophic flooding tore through Lismore, inundating the gallery. The Hannah Cabinet was among 1,400 works damaged. By sheer luck, it fell backwards, sparing its intricate façade, but water seeped into joints and veneers, lifting and distorting delicate inlays. What had taken years of quiet devotion to create was, in a single disaster, left in need of complex conservation.
The task of saving it has fallen, fittingly, to three generations of Churchill Fellows.
For Greg Peters, confronting a muddy, waterlogged Hannah Cabinet in sections and disrepair immediately after the floods was a daunting task. Drawing on his deep knowledge of conservation practice, he stabilised and dried the timbers and veneers, then began the careful process of reverse construction, opening up the Cabinet’s inner sanctums.
Conservator Greg Peters and furniture maker–restorer Colin Fardon are leading the work alongside Geoffrey himself. Colin first met Geoff as a teenager in woodwork classes, returning week after week until those lessons stretched into 19 years of training and mentorship. Seeing the Cabinet emerge, piece by piece, in Hannah’s workshop was, he says, a turning point.
Geoffrey notes, “Colin would have witnessed the Cabinet being made almost from the beginning, while attending my woodwork classes. It gives him an insight into its method of construction that few others would have.”
“I witnessed the Hannah Cabinet being built from its early stages,” Colin recalls. “Seeing Geoffrey make the Cabinet is one of the big motivators and inspirations for me to pursue a career in fine woodworking and furniture restoration.”
Years later, it was Hannah who encouraged him to apply for a Churchill Fellowship. That experience took Colin to leading conservation workshops and collections across Europe and the UK, where he observed how world-class institutions care for complex objects over centuries, not seasons.
Geoffrey believes the knowledge Colin gained from his recent Churchill Fellowship in conservation will certainly benefit the Hannah Cabinet. He will follow on from Greg’s initial stabilisation work to carry out repairs, gilding & refinishing.
Colin says his Fellowship fundamentally changed how he approaches restoration, sharpening his awareness of what is required to, restore and protect a piece for generations to come.
“Maybe the biggest lesson I came away with is a ‘conservation mindset’… an obligation to preserve the originality and history of an object and carry out treatments that are reversible and reparable to ensure the longevity of the object.”
Greg’s Fellowship played a similar role. His career in conservation has been shaped by the generosity of specialists who opened storerooms, shared techniques and allowed him to watch large-scale conservation projects unfold over the years. Skills he refined during his Fellowship, including marquetry repair, veneer work and complex Boulle-style treatments using infrared heat and vacuum bagging, are now being applied directly to the Hannah Cabinet.
He admits that projects like this demand patience as much as technical expertise. Large-scale conservation work, he says, often takes “years and years,” something he saw repeatedly in the major European collections he visited. The Hannah Cabinet is no different: meticulous, methodical and unforgiving of shortcuts.
Both Greg and Colin see the restoration as a powerful expression of what Churchill Fellowships make possible. Hannah’s Fellowship decades ago helped create the Cabinet; theirs now help to save it. Just as meaningful are the relationships that sit behind the work. Greg describes an international network of conservators, developed through his Fellowship, who remain willing to share advice. Colin echoes this, noting the value of being able to call on leading experts across Europe and the UK to ensure the best outcome for the Cabinet.
“It’s a very unfortunate way to demonstrate the value of our Fellowships,” Greg reflects, “but it feels we have come full circle and that the link we have as Churchill Fellows has underpinned our commitment and trust in one another to see this extremely complex project through to the end.”
“To be now collectively applying the knowledge and experiences that Geoff, Colin, and I gained on our Fellowships is truly a remarkable feeling.”
For both men, this is not just an object, but a story about continuity, community and responsibility. Colin speaks of the flood impact on his hometown and the Cabinet in the same breath, hoping that its return to Lismore “in its restored state will be healing… a sign of renewal and rebuilding from the devastation the flood caused the entire Lismore community.” He also hopes it will encourage young people to explore conservation, restoration and making as meaningful careers.
Their philosophy is as much about people as it is about wood, shell and stone. Colin talks about mentoring and “help[ing] the younger generation gain a foothold in what is a very niche field.” Greg points to the ongoing connections formed through his Fellowship and the way they continue to support his practice today.
Geoffrey takes some comfort in having two very competent Churchill Fellows in charge of the resurrection of the Hannah Cabinet. “It gives me total confidence for a more than positive outcome.”
When the Hannah Cabinet finally returns to public display, it will do so bearing the marks of three intertwined journeys: the original act of creation inspired by a Fellowship in 1980; the lifetimes of skill and care invested by Hannah, Greg and Colin; and the resilience of a community determined to rebuild. In the end, it is not only a cabinet that is being restored, but a shared belief in craft, learning and the quiet, enduring power of generosity.
