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.
August 2026
POSTPONED – RAHS Day Lecture – A.D. Hope: A Poet in History
This event has been postponed. We will notify you when the event is rescheduled (Notice Date: 28/07/2026).
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 5 August 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
Event Description:
The poet Alec Derwent Hope (1907–2000) lived for all but seven years of the twentieth century. He was acutely aware of the changes in technology over his lifetime, moving from the horse-and-cart days of his childhood to seeing the live television relay of a rocket ship reaching the moon on his sixty-second birthday. This paper will trace the way his poetry responded to change and his growing concern about the way that humans destroy the world around them.
About the speaker:
Dr Susan Lever OAM taught literature for many years at the University of New South Wales, Canberra, and she is the author and editor of several books, including A Question of Commitment: Australian Literature in the Twenty Years after the War. She became a friend of Alec Hope in the 1980s when she taught at the Australian National University.
RAHS Special Lecture – Unravelling the story of Elizabeth Fulloon and the Parramatta Female Factory, 1824–1827
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 19 August 2026, 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Described by Governor Darling as ‘a woman of extraordinary bodily strength and energy of character’, Elizabeth Fulloon was a 43-year-old recently widowed mother of five when she arrived in NSW to take up her role as Superintendent of the Parramatta Female Factory. How did the wife of a London schoolmaster become the Factory’s first female Superintendent? How should we remember her time there, and was she really responsible for the infamous 1827 riot?
About the speaker:
Heather Garnsey is a direct descendant of Elizabeth Fulloon and published her biography, Unravelled, in December 2025. She is an Honorary Member and Fellow of the Society of Australian Genealogists, where she worked for 35 years and was awarded an OAM in 2024 for her service to family history. After retiring in 2020, she is enjoying having more time for her own family history projects.
September 2026
RAHS Day Lecture – Discovering Bessie Rischbieth
Bessie Rischbieth in India, 1929-30 (National Library of Australia)
Date & Time: Wednesday, 2 September 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Bessie Mabel Rischbieth (1874–1967) was many things: a feminist leader, an ardent internationalist, a lifelong theosophist and a global traveller, as well as a wife, aunt and sister. Her name might not be so well known now, but at her peak from the 1910s to the 1940s, she was one of the most significant feminists in the country. This presentation will share some of the key features and events of her long life and will showcase various archival materials that offer insights into the fascinating and sometimes enigmatic character she was.
About the speaker:
Dr Michelle Staff is a feminist historian based at the Australian National University in Canberra/Kamberri. She is the online and outreach manager for the National Centre of Biography and in 2025 received the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship in support of her current project, a biography of the Western Australian feminist Bessie Rischbieth. She is also an avid amateur soccer player and dog mum to Billie the cavoodle.
RAHS Special Lecture – The Many Stories of Dr Mary Booth: Revealing the Life of Federation's Forgotten Feminist
This event is part of History Week 2026
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 9 September 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Mary Booth’s life reads like a compendium of feminist firsts. One of the first women to graduate and practice medicine and amongst the first to run for parliament, she championed infant welfare, shaped the founding rituals of Anzac, fought to protect Sydney’s historic and natural landscape, and established the first Women’s Club in Sydney. This paper will reveal the many stories of her life, retracing her time abroad and travels across Australia. It will situate ‘Mary’ in time and place, gauge her contribution to the political and social life of the early Commonwealth and assess the legacy she left to both nation and empire.
About the speakers:
Rae Frances and Bruce Scates are Emeritus Professors at the Australian National University. Prize-winning authors, they have published widely across a range of genres. Their collaborative biography, Mary Booth: The Woman who Shaped the Anzac Legend, has just been published by Melbourne University Press and pioneers new forms of life writing.
Southern Highlands Seminar – Researching Local and Family History in Your Community
Railway Avenue, Bundanoon, n.d. (RAHS Postcard Collection)
This event is held in conjunction with Bundanoon History Group
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 23 September 2026 @ 10.00 am – 3.30 pm
Event Location: Exeter Village Hall, 10 Exeter Road, Exeter NSW 2579
Cost: $25 members | $30 non-members (includes a morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea)
Event Description:
The Royal Australian Historical Society, in partnership with the Bundanoon History Group, present a full-day seminar on using online archives and sources for local and family history.
Participants will learn about researching land and property records, using Trove for local and family history, the Musuems of History NSW State Archives Collection, and NSW Railways.
About the speakers:
Carol Liston AO is President of the Royal Australian Historical Society and a leading historian of early NSW. Her research focuses on colonial society, families and institutions, and she has published widely in this field. She brings deep expertise in working with early government, church and archival records, and in interpreting them to reconstruct lives and communities.
Christine Yeats is Senior Vice President of the Royal Australian Historical Society and specialises in family and local history research. She is an experienced presenter of research seminars, with a focus on practical methods, digital tools and improving search techniques. Her sessions are known for their clarity and practical, step-by-step approach.