PHA NSW& ACT member Michael Williams specialises in local Australian history and heritage and in Chinese Australian and diaspora history. Here we see him in south China, on a conference tour  concerning Australia’s links with villages such as this one, the world-heritage listed Kaiping. What is your current area of historical interest? I am researching … Read more
The architect of the Republic of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew died on 23 March 2015, in the fiftieth year of the island nation’s independence. Yvonne Perkins recently interviewed Associate Professor Kevin Blackburn, an historian who has been working in Singapore for over twenty years. Her post reveals how history is evolving in the state over … Read more
In this profile, the PHA NSW & ACT membership officer, Judith Godden (PhD Macq, BA(Hons) UNE, MPH (a.e.g.) USyd, Dip  Ed. UNE, FACN(hon), MPHA) talks about her forays into medical history. What is your current position/area of historical interest: I’m into pain at the moment! I specialise in the history of medicine and my commissioned history, … Read more
One of my day jobs is teaching plain English to public servants. I encourage them to embrace accuracy, brevity and clarity and therefore to abandon tautologies. I’ve given up suggesting that you can’t have a new initiative and that, if you have to voice an opinion in government writing, it does not have to be personal. … Read more
Emma Dortins mixes history and art… A hesitant hand clap, silence, another clap followed by another, a shuffle and guffaw, more confident clapping, a whoop and smattering of laughter as the claps develop a pattern. This is one of the recordings sound artist and clarinet player Laura Altman (LINK) and I have filed away … Read more
This post is a personal reflection by Ian Willis about his involvement in a community consultation on the Camden Town Centre Enhancement Strategy. The strategy involves a number of elements: a decked car park; traffic lights; additional street lighting; new street furniture; and landscaping, signage and footpath development. It has produced a problematic consultative process … Read more
…and to Samantha Leah, a PHA NSW member from regional New South Wales. Samantha is an historian and heritage consultant with nghenvironmental, based in Wagga Wagga but travelling far and wide! What made you decide to pursue a career in history? My Pop was a pilot with the RAF in Bomber Command during the Second … Read more
Our Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is taking history books to read at the beach. One is Michael Pembroke’s biography of NSW governor Arthur Phillip. Pembroke’s book was on the shortlist in the history category of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. It did not win the $80,000 prize, which was shared by Joan Beaumont for Broken … Read more
Five minutes with a new PHA NSW & ACT member, Carol Roberts… Carol has a Master of History (UNE), Bachelor of Arts Majoring in Australian History (UNE), Advanced Diploma Local, Family & Applied History, Associate Diploma in Theory, Musicianship and Criticism (Trinity College of Music, London), Diploma in Community Cultural Development. What are your current … Read more
PHA (NSW & ACT) member Sue Castrique’s long-awaited history of the convict period on Cockatoo Island was launched at History House in Sydney on 26 November. This work deals with corruption, patronage and intrigue, constant features of NSW politics in colonial times just as they are now. Under the Colony’s Eye tells the story … Read more