by Patricia Hale PHA NSW’s March CPD session on Researching the Lands Department Records was attended by a capacity audience of over 30 people. The purpose of the workshop was to provide researchers with the tools to locate information in the records of the NSW Lands Department held by State Records at Kingswood. The workshop … Read more

Until now it has been relatively easy to regard Newcastle as a place where heavy industry shaped the city’s history and the artistic and cultural heritage was much less important. Similarly, the achievements of Newcastle’s colonial era have been overshadowed by the harsh conditions of the penal colony and its isolation from Sydney. On Saturday … Read more

PHA NSW CPD February 2013 at Surry Hills Library (Photograph: Pauline Curby) About a dozen of us gathered at Surry Hills Library on Saturday 16 February 2013 to hear Kate Waters’ presentation on doing oral histories with Aboriginal people. Kate is a professional historian of long standing and has been a member of the PHA NSW, … Read more

Western Sydney is the new black. It’s not just federal politicians who are discovering the dynamism of the communities that make up around half of Sydney’s total population. PHA NSW member Katherine Knight has been in the thick of cultural developments in the area for decades. This experience has culminated in the publication of her … Read more

Members will have seen the call for papers for the 2013 AHA conference in Wollongong (www.theaha.org.au). To help stimulate your ideas for a possible presentation, this month’s blog gives you an snapshot of what PHANSW members contributed last year in Adelaide. The featured image is courtesy of Rosemary Kerr. It was taken on the excursion … Read more

I write this blog from Indonesia. Reviewing the past year, poet and journalist Goenawan Mohamad called 2012 the year of remembering. The resonance with 1965 is deliberate. It harks back to what the Australian novelist Christopher Koch dubbed the year of living dangerously. Koch borrowed that term from Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, who was actually … Read more

Dear PHA NSW members Some of you may recall me nagging you for contributions for the September 2012 edition of Phanfare. Your efforts were not in vain. I’m storing them up to publish on this blog in 2013. But this month, I’m abusing my position at the steering wheel to make an unashamed advertisement for … Read more

PHA NSW’s CPD session on defamation, legal issues and insurance for historians was held on the evening of Thursday 2 November 2012 at History House. The session was organised by Judith Godden and there were 15 PHA NSW members in attendance. The CPD was divided into two halves. In the first hour, Peter Fairfield, principal … Read more

The PHANSW is delighted to launch its new look website. Built in wordpress the new site will allow us to keep our members up to date very easily. The site features individual member profiles that our members can update and edit themselves, helping them to promote their work more easily. Image credit: State Records NSW … Read more