RAHS Upcoming Events
The Royal Australian Historical Society has an established tradition of delivering a diverse Calendar of Events throughout the year, helping make history accessible to all. This program includes lectures, skills-based workshops, regional seminars, tours and book launches.
The annual RAHS Conference is a highlight of the Society’s activities. It provides an opportunity for the RAHS and its Affiliated Societies to network at a conference dedicated to promoting local and community history, showcasing the research of individuals and societies.
November 2025
RAHS Day Lecture – Records and Reveries: Alice Haigh’s photographs of Sydney in the 1920s
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 5 November 2025 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
CLICK HERE TO BOOK A TICKET
Event Description:
The beautifully-crafted photo albums created in the 1920s by RAHS member Alice Maud Haigh (1878–1934) deserve recognition both for what they tell us about the rapidly-changing urban and architectural environment in Sydney, and for their implicit invitation to see more of our urban setting by walking the streets and understanding the context. This talk introduces the photographer and her work.
About the speaker:
Dr Catherine De Lorenzo brings cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary perspectives to her research on Australian art, photography, exhibitions, and public art. Having co-authored Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening our eyes (2018), her current project, with Bandgalung curator/writer Djon Mundine, examines selected Australian art exhibitions in Europe since 1937. She has served as an associate editor on several international journals, and is an Adjunct A/Professor at Monash University.
RAHS Hybrid Seminar – Collections and Community: Trove and NSW Historical Societies
Event Date & Time: Tuesday, 11 November 2025 @ 10.30 am – 3.30 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 AND Online (This will be a hybrid event for remote participants)
Event Description:
The Royal Australian Historical Society invites you to Collections and Community: Trove and NSW Historical Societies, presented in partnership with the National Library of Australia.
This special one-day event explores how community history organisations can use Trove’s tools, resources and partnerships to connect collections and strengthen the local history network.
Session A: Connecting Collections: Using Trove to Promote Local and Community History
This session will introduce the Trove Content Contributor Package and explore how historical societies can participate in the Trove network. Presenters will outline practical ways to share catalogued collections through Trove, highlight funding opportunities, and provide guidance on the latest Trove tools and resources.
Session B: Connecting Community: Supporting and Sustaining Historical Societies
In this session we will celebrate the achievements of volunteers from affiliated societies and provide a practical forum for discussing how historical societies can collaborate, adopt new tools, and sustain their work for future generations. Together, we’ll share knowledge, recognise contributions, and look at ways to keep NSW community history strong and connected.
RAHS Special Lecture – Horizontal Noticeboards: Chalk writing during the Great Depression
The Mirror, Perth, September 1930.
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 19 November 2025 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Mr Eternity was not the only person chalking on footpaths in the 1930s. Writing on pavements is a form of graffiti that is seldom discussed but, despite its ephemerality, there is ample evidence for its existence during the last century or more. Megan Hicks investigated one short era, the tumultuous Great Depression years of the early 1930s, and found many examples of chalk and whitewash pavement writing. It was prolific, conspicuous, newsworthy and integral to the story of public life and politics in Australia during those turbulent times.
About the speaker:
Megan Hicks was a curator at the Powerhouse Museum for many years before turning to freelance work as a museum and heritage advisor, particularly for organisations with health and medicine collections. Megan also completed a PhD on ‘Pavement graffiti’ at Macquarie University and went on to become an Adjunct Researcher in urban studies with Western Sydney University. Currently, as an independent researcher, Megan’s particular interest is informal writing in public spaces, including graffiti and flyposters.
December 2025
RAHS Day Lecture – Celebrating Joan Kerr’s Legacy
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 3 December 2025 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Joan Kerr AM FAHA (1938–2004) was an Australian academic and cultural preservationist whose passion for safeguarding architectural heritage expanded to encompass art history and culture. Joan was a powerful force in the world of art history for several decades, encouraging many younger women historians to make their marks in the public arena. Joan taught nationwide, contributed to preservation societies, and authored significant works, including Heritage: The national women’s art book, 500 works by 500 Australian women artists from colonial times to 1955, which was launched 30 years ago.
About the speaker:
Dr Susan Steggall has written a memoir: Alpine Beach: A Family Adventure (1999); a biography: A Most Generous Scholar: Joan Kerr, Art and Architectural Historian (a successful PhD thesis and winner in the 2013 Society of Women Writers NSW Book Awards); plus novels: Forget Me Not (2006), It Happened Tomorrow (2013),‘Tis the Doing Not the Deed (2019), The Heritage You Leave Behind (2021) and To Carve Identity (2024). Susan also writes art-related articles, exhibition and book reviews, chapters and essays.
January 2026
February 2026
RAHS Day Lecture – What You Didn’t Know About the Letters of Rachel Henning
Rachel Henning (Supplied: Angela Phippen)
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 4 February 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
Event Description:
In 1951–1952, The Bulletin published a series of letters written by Rachel Henning covering her experiences coming to and living in Australia, between 1853–1882. They became a publishing phenomenon with multiple subsequent standalone editions. However, only half of her original letters were ever published and those that were had been edited. In this illustrated lecture, Angela Phippen will explain what was edited and why. The lecture is based on Angela’s research as a State Library of NSW Visiting Fellow in 2025.
About the speaker:
Angela Phippen has been a professional librarian for over 40 years having worked at the Society of Australian Genealogists and as Local Studies Librarian with City of Ryde Libraries. She has diverse research interests including NSW divorce records; war memorials and honour boards; and the nineteenth-century stained-glass artist, pastoralist and surveyor, George Hedgeland – Rachel Henning’s brother-in-law.
March 2026
RAHS Day Lecture – The Last Tour: The Robeson’s Visit to Australia and New Zealand
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 4 March 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Paul Robeson was once the most famous African American in the world. Not only was he a renowned singer and actor, he was also a former professional athlete, lawyer and civil rights activist. Paul and his wife, Eslanda – a notable civil rights activist, author, United Nations journalist and anthropologist – were finally able to tour Australia and New Zealand in 1960, after the US government denied Paul a passport until 1958. The Robeson’s tour encompassed concerts, talks to unionists, fans, women’s organisations, communists, and peace activists. It involved active engagement with Indigenous peoples and their struggles in both countries. Through the Robeson’s eyes we see life on the Far Left, the emergence of new forms of Aboriginal and Māori protest, and the reception and influence of African American entertainers in Australia and New Zealand. Based on extensive new documentary and oral history research, The Last Tour explores why the Robeson’s trip was such a success and how it exerted a profound influence both at the time and over future generations.
About the speaker:
Ann Curthoys AM, FASSA, FAHA has written extensively about race, class and gender in Australian history, with an interest in both its British imperial contexts and its American, especially African American, connections. Influenced by her mother’s involvement in pro-Aboriginal political activism and her own participation in the 1965 Australian Freedom Ride, Curthoys established the Women’s Studies Program at the Australian National University, taught History at the University of Technology Sydney, and later returned to ANU where she became the Manning Clark Chair of History. She is now Professor Emerita at ANU, an honorary professor at the University of Sydney, and is a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).
RAHS Special Lecture – Rock and Tempest: Surviving Cyclone Tracy and its Aftermath
Event Date & Time: Friday, 6 March 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
Event Description:
When Cyclone Tracy flattened Darwin on Christmas Day 1974, it was the worst natural disaster Australians had ever experienced. Stationed in the city with the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service, Patricia Collins not only lived through Tracy but was part of the massive clean-up effort. The experience of living through a terrifying natural disaster is chillingly told as she recounts her own dark hours that Christmas, along with those of her contemporaries. In the days after Tracy, the majority of Darwin’s population was evacuated interstate as the Navy’s Task Force arrived to clean up and rebuild. In this talk, Patrica Collins will share first-person accounts of the terror and uncertainty as well as courage and survival. It is fascinating and moving story.
About the speaker:
Patricia Collins was a member of the WRANS, the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service, based at HMAS Coonawarra in Darwin when Cyclone Tracy destroyed the city on Christmas Eve 1974. Patricia wasn’t evacuated but stayed and worked on clean-up duties for months. Patricia wrote the book Rock and Tempest in her 60s, to record the achievements of her fellow Navy women and men at that time. Rock and Tempest, published by Hachette Australia in 2024, won the Anzac Memorial Trustees Military History Prize in the State Library of NSW History Awards in 2025.
RAHS Special Lecture – A Darkened Heart: The life and times of Frank Arkell
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 18 March 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
Event Description:
In the 1970s and 1980s, Frank Arkell dominated Wollongong politics. His irrepressible energy and relentless advocacy for the city won him widespread popularity. But there was growing disquiet over his private life which many said involved anonymous assignations with young men and even boys. In 1997 these rumours culminated in police charges of sexual abuse. Before legal proceedings could be concluded, he was brutally murdered by a young man on 26 June 1998. Erik Eklund’s work on Arkell tries to make sense of these extremes of civic engagement and private perversion all cut short by a dramatic fall from grace and then a shocking murder.
About the speaker:
Erik Eklund is an award-winning historian and Adjunct Professor of History at the Australian National University. He was Professor of History and Head of School at Monash University from 2008 to 2013 and the Keith Cameron Visiting Professor in Australian History at University College Dublin, Ireland, from 2015 to 2016. He is currently working as the Deputy Director of Research at the Sea Power Centre in Canberra.