…by Stephen Gapps… The 17th of April 1816 is not a date etched in wider Australian memory nor even that of Sydneysiders concerned about their past. However it is imprinted in the memory of descendants of Dharawal and Gandangarra people who were massacred by a military expedition sent out on the orders of Governor … Read more
Ian Willis visits an artists’ retreat… What has history got to do with an artists’ retreat you might ask? Quite a bit as it turns out. I was recently invited to address such a gathering at Varroville in New South Wales; it was quite an enlightening and stimulating occasion. The three-day 2016 Artists’ Retreat was … Read more
… the latest in the occasional series introducing PHA NSW and ACT members. What is your current position/area of historical interest I am transitioning from full-time administrative work to part-time casual so that I can concentrate on building up a new career as a professional historian. I have wide-ranging interests but my main focus is … Read more
…Birgit Heilmann reports The 2015 Public History Prize was awarded to Imogen Dixon-Smith (pictured right) for her essay, Keeping up with the times: Complicating understandings of gender at the historic house Meroogal. The judges, current chair of the PHA NSW & ACT, Dr Mark Dunn, and Dr Catherine Bishop, Historical Studies Research Concentration Coordinator … Read more
by Francesca Beddie On 22 February the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story saying ‘the National Library of Australia has launched a major review of services, with key programs to be curtailed or cancelled amid staff cuts, as management struggles to deal with the Turnbull government’s efficiency dividend’. It reported that the library expects to … Read more
… by Ian Willis ‘Get to know your neighbourhood – you could be in for some surprises!’ says PHA member Katherine Knight, after picking up one of the volumes in the Kingsclear Books Pictorial History Series. A number of PHA members, including myself, have written for Kingsclear about particular localities, regions or local government … Read more
by Christa Ludlow… Bubonic plague in Sydney in January 1900 infected 303 people and by August had killed 103. The outbreak coincided neatly with the beginning of the Edwardian era and the rise of the “expert” in public life. I became interested in this part of Sydney’s history while I was researching for my … Read more
by Carol Roberts … A few years ago I began interviewing the earth-pastel artist Greg Hansell. My research led to me running several historical tours based on Hansell’s artistic representation of heritage sites in the Hawkesbury and close environs. Hansell says his attraction to painting farm implements, tools and industrial technology is ‘hard-wired’ from … Read more
Over the summer, Kate Bagnall created an online exhibition about the Chinese in NSW. Here’s how she did it: I used Trove lists and a nifty online exhibition framework built by Tim Sherratt. The list feature in [the National Library of Australia’s] Trove allows registered users to create their own collections of items. They’re a handy thing … Read more
… Francesca Beddie reviews Laura Tingle’s Quarterly Essay. In Political Amnesia How we forgot to govern Tingle uses the words ‘memory’ and ‘history’ interchangeably. This is a pity for the two are not the same. She herself acknowledges that ‘as time goes by, the memories tend to over-glorify the past, and under-comprehend how it came about.’ … Read more