Nick Fletcher has worked at the Australian War Memorial for more than sixteen years. Several of these years were spent as part of the Travelling Exhibitions unit, which develops and tours AWM exhibitions all over Australia. In 2000, he transferred to the Military Heraldry and Technology Section, eventually becoming head of that area. He developed the online exhibition Allies in Adversity: Australia and the Dutch in the Pacific War, which opened in 2006, and has also been assistant curator on a number of exhibitions, including Forging the Nation: Federation, the first 20 years, 1916 Australians In France, To Flanders Fields 1917 and 1918 Advancing to Victory.
Keenly interested in Australian military history, particularly of the First World War, Nick was selected to participate in the joint Australian War Memorial (AWM) – Imperial War Museum staff tour of Gallipoli in September 2000, and to accompany the eight young winners of the Simpson Prize on their visit to Turkey the following year. In 2002, he led a group from ADFA, comprising cadets, instructors and family, on a tour of the Western Front, and he has been, since 2003, a leader of AWM groups on the battlefield tour of Gallipoli. Since 2006, he has also been leading AWM tours of the Western Front. He is currently co-authoring a history of the 56th Infantry Battalion, AIF, in the First World War, which should be published next year.
In October 2009, with the assistance of the ADF, Nick travelled to the Middle East as the Memorial’s Official Curator, becoming the first staff member to visit Australian bases in Afghanistan. He spent several weeks observing conditions, talking to deployed personnel and collecting material for the National Collection. Nick revisited the MEAO in January –February this year.
Nick is now working as the concept leader for the redevelopment of the AWM’s First World War galleries, a job that will likely keep him busy until at least 2014.
