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Read the Editorial to the RAHS Journal, Volume 112, Part 1, June 2026
The British colony of New South Wales included land areas allocated as Church and School Estates. The Estates were leased, with the funds used for the Church of England clergy and children’s education between 1826–1833, before reverting to the Crown. One of these estates, the Parish of Thalaba, in the County of Gloucester, is the area of study. The lessees and their families, from the British Isles and one German family, from predominantly agricultural backgrounds, settled at Thalaba from 1845. One of the lessees, Benjamin Marsh, tenanted some of his leased land to seven families. All were assisted immigrants who ultimately purchased their holdings.
Popular memory and local historical studies have cemented the notion that explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell built the first house in Stanwell Park, a picturesque coastal village south of Sydney in the northern Illawarra. Did he in fact do so? This essay looks at the European history of Stanwell Park and examines in detail the aesthetic response to the area by Mitchell and others, along with the history of settlement there as documented in newspaper advertisements, letters and other historical documents, including visual resources. Mitchell’s diaries and letters are a valuable source of information about his architectural ambitions, preoccupations and activities. A much more complex picture emerges with a changing array of characters and only a minor role for the famous explorer.
George Melford’s film The Sheik (1921) catapulted Rudolph Valentino to heartthrob stardom and was a box-office phenomenon. Beyond Valentino’s magnetism and E.M. Hull’s book upon which the film was based, the film resonated with other desert horsemen of the First World War and with the emerging legend of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. Examining the emergence of these dual ‘sheik’ fantasies in Australia – Valentino and Lawrence – I suggest that wartime visual culture and the subsequent popularity of T.E. Lawrence’s story contributed to sheik-mania of all sorts in Australia in the 1920s and beyond.
Film has played a seminal role in Australian environmental history in shaping public awareness of the value of nature conservation. This history is particularly relevant to Tasmania, where the pioneering cinematographers Herbert King and Frederick Smithies, during the early to mid-twentieth century, produced numerous films and photographs of scenic landscapes and their wildlife in their effort to engage the public in nature’s aesthetic, recreational and scientific values. Their reliance on illustrated lecture tours and community outreach made their approach particularly effective in engaging audiences and set a precedent for more recent environmental activists who have turned to visual media.
This article covers the photographic work of pioneering Australian photographer Florence Milson held by the State Library of New South Wales. Although little-known today, Florence Milson was a highly regarded photographer in post-World War I Australia. She was born in 1871 and was the wife of Albert George Milson (of Milson’s Point) and Lady Mayoress of North Sydney in the years before World War I. She was the first female member of the elite ‘Sydney Camera Circle’ and was exhibited at the 1920 ‘International Exhibition of the London Salon of Photography’, alongside Harold Cazneaux and Cecil Bostock. Very few of her works have survived, and her photos held by the State Library of New South Wales are of great historical significance.
Catharine Coleborne, Vagrant Lives in Colonial Australasia: Regulating mobility, 1840–1910, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2024, 201 pages; ISBN 9781350252691.
Wendy Michaels, A Battle-axe in the Bear Pit: Millicent Preston Stanley MP, Connor Court Publishing, Redland Bay, Qld, 2025, 235 pages; ISBN 9781923224568.
Robert Macklin, with John Gray, The Man who Planted Canberra – Charles Weston and his three million trees, National Library of Australia Publishing, Canberra, 2025, 240 pages; ISBN 9781922507778.
Peter Bradley, The Convict and the Compass: The untold story of James Meehan, Ventura Press, Edgecliff, NSW, 2025, 600 pages; ISBN 9781920727420.
John Ramsland, Australia’s Player King: The life and films of Peter Finch, Brolga Publishing Pty Ltd, Torquay, Vic, 2024, xv + 443 pages; ISBN 9780645815894.
Henry Reynolds, Looking from the North: Australian history from the top down, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, 2025, 229 pages; ISBN 9781761170119.
Martin Thomas, Clever Men: How worlds collided on the scientific expedition to Arnhem Land of 1948, Allen & Unwin, Cammeraygal Country, NSW, 2025, xxxviii + 458 pages; ISBN 9781761069321.
John Seymour, Australia’s Naval Alliances: Lessons of history, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2025, xvii + 216 pages; ISBN 978036448790.
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Revision is a cornerstone of historical scholarship, the welcome consequence of open discussion typically supported by rigorously tested new evidence. This case study examines one such instance concerning the Australian War Memorial’s Wirraway aircraft, which famously shot down a Japanese Zero fighter aircraft in late 1942, the only one ever to do so. It presents a detailed analysis of the evidence for both the revision and status quo cases, finding overwhelmingly in favour of the latter.
As Foreign Editor of Sydney’s Evening News from 1922 until 1931, Andrew Melville Pooley was instrumental in transforming the popular reporting of foreign news in Australia, while also lecturing to a wide variety of audiences, including the NSW chapter of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, of which he was a founding member. Drawing upon his extensive and continuing international travels, he continued to provide incisive contributions to debate on world affairs in publications and commentary in the 1930s. However, he first gained international notoriety as a correspondent in Japan, where his exposure of corrupt collusion between international arms manufacturers and the Navy led to the fall of the government in Tokyo.
Father Captain Thomas Joseph O’Donnell, an Irish Australian, led by Christian example. He was assertive, positive in his religion, pragmatic, and patriotic to the people of Australia. O’Donnell lectured to support the government’s call for enlistments and the conscription referendums. The newly appointed Archbishop of Melbourne, Dr Daniel Mannix, refused to grant him permission to join the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a chaplain until a frustrated O’Donnell defiantly joined up as a private soldier. Within the military, he preached and practised his faith with a dedication to humanity.
While visiting his relations and friends in Ireland post-war, his Irish accent and AIF uniform saw him arrested for using disloyal words about the Sovereign. It marked him as a person of interest to British military intelligence, who saw things in the context of suppressing the Irish Republican movement. A court-martial followed. The Irish Republican Army later murdered O’Donnell’s British accuser, Lieutenant Stewart Chambers. Australia was drawn into this sensational event at the highest level. There were tensions between the AIF and the War Office, the British and the Irish independence movement, and sectarianism. Captain O’Donnell’s voice and agency are captured in this paper.
In late 1981, in response to escalating Cold War tensions and the buildup of arms that accompanied it, Western Australian peace activists formed the People for Nuclear Disarmament (PND (WA)). PND (WA) was part of the broader Australian disarmament movement and brought together a wide range of disarmament groups while maintaining a commitment to grassroots organising. In 1984, WA disarmament activist and Nuclear Disarmament Party (NDP) senate candidate, Jo Vallentine, was elected. Shortly after its electoral victory, the NDP split, with Vallentine leaving the party to sit as an independent. In the aftermath of the NDP split, the WA disarmament movement rallied around Senator Vallentine, providing the groundwork for the emergence of the WA Greens.
We argue that a picture titled ‘Civilisation’ by Yakaduna, better known as Tommy McRae, is a key piece of visual evidence that helps viewers glimpse something of the challenges faced by First Nations people and by colonists in negotiating coexistence. We explore some of the interpretive possibilities of the picture, drawing on surveys of the artist’s life and times and giving attention to representations of the Lake Moodemere encampment/reserve where McRae lived. We summarise scholarly appraisals made of his work and trace newspaper reports of his achievements. We draw on recent work by scholars to suggest the importance of visual storytelling and of McRae’s work to Wiradjuri people and to residents in the border district region. We argue the picture points to stories of resilience, survival, cultural resistance and present-day cultural resurgence. It triggers investigations of the reasons for the Lake Moodemere encampment/reserve and what the place means for First Nations people.
Santilla Chingaipe, Black convicts: How slavery shaped Australia, Scribner, Sydney, NSW, 2024, xxiii + 308 pages; ISBN 9781761107238.
Kristen Alexander, Kriegies: The Australian airmen of Stalag Luft III, Ad Astra Press, Mawson, ACT, 2023, xvii + 220 pages; ISBN 9780645792515.
Peter Crowley, Townsend of the Ranges, National Library of Australia, Canberra, ACT, 2024, 352 pages; ISBN 9781922507693.
Peter Woodley, ‘We are a farming class’: Dubbo’s hinterland, 1870–1950, Australian National University Press, Canberra, ACT, 2025, xix + 346 pages; ISBN 9781760466756.
Megan Brown and Lucy Sussex, Outrageous Fortunes: The adventures of Mary Fortune, crime writer, and her criminal son, La Trobe University Press, Collingwood, Vic, 2025, 341 pages; ISBN 9781760645052.
Jacqueline Kent, Inconvenient Women: Australian radical writers 1900–1970, NewSouth Publishing, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, NSW, ix + 303 pages; ISBN 9781742237503.
Trish FitzSimons and Madelyn Shaw, Fleeced: Unraveling the history of wool and war, Rowman & Littlefield, New York, 2025, xiv + 246 pages; ISBN 9798881803803.
Stephen Gapps, Uprising: War in the colony of New South Wales, 1838–1844, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, NSW, 2025, vi + 320 pages; ISBN 9781742238029.
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The spearing of Governor Phillip on a Sydney Harbour beach in 1790 is a significant incident in Australian history. Was it a spur-of-the-moment act, a premeditated ‘payback’, or is there another explanation? Though the incident is factually well known, why it happened has ample scope for further consideration. This paper questions the ritualistic explanations of Governor Phillip’s spearing characteristic of most historical interpretations of the incident since 2001. It concludes that Phillip’s assailant acted defensively of his own volition in the heat of the moment.
This article traces the life and career of an identity of early Wagga Wagga, John Clark (1824–76). Held in high esteem throughout the town and district, Clark was a publican, alderman and entrepreneur. Yet, unbeknownst to everyone, including his own family, he was also a fugitive from justice.
The Australian Government established the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS) in 1961 and made it permanent through an Act of Parliament in 1964. It was to record and collect the remaining cultural knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living a traditional lifestyle in all its aspects: ‘before it was too late’. AIAS had a veneer of academic independence, and so long as it dealt with bona fide researchers and their research projects, their political orientation was not considered. Nevertheless, when confronted with funding a research application by Frederick G. G. Rose, it was the applicant rather than the research project that was problematic. This paper examines Rose’s dealings with the AIAS, the difficulties it faced in supporting academic and political freedom, and pressure from government to deny Rose funding.
In 1788 the King of Spain, Carlos III, authorised an enlightenment voyage by two Captains of the Spanish Royal Navy, Alejandro Malaspina and José de Bustamante y Guerra. This political-scientific expedition took four years. This paper explores the Malaspina-Bustamante expedition, the first official foreign delegation to visit Port Jackson following the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788.
With anticipation of war against Britain, in mid-1796 Bustamante wrote a plan for the defence of Spanish America and Spain’s interests in the Pacific. One part of his plan was the destruction of the Sydney colony with gunboats from Peru, Chile and Montevideo. The inhabitants of Sydney and Norfolk Island would become prisoners of war and be transported to South America. It was hoped that some of these colonial prisoners might populate the Spanish Americas. Bustamante was tasked by senior Spanish ministers to develop his plan.
In parallel with Bustamante’s work was the rapidly expanding British southern whale fishery that had commenced its operations in the Pacific Ocean from 1789. While first a peaceful activity, once war between Britain and Spain commenced then these whalers were also privateers – operating against Spanish colonial ports and shipping.
For Spain the elimination of the colony at Sydney was important for the preservation of Spanish control in the Pacific and the suppression of whaling privateers. This essay describes the Bustamante plan and its aftermath as British interests in the Pacific Ocean transformed what had been a silent backwater before 1788. Additional information on Spanish language sources for a view of Australian history is also explored. This paper should add to the understanding of one European power’s strategic response to the new British colony in the southwest Pacific.
Lucy Frost, Convict orphans: The heartbreaking stories of the colony’s forgotten children, and those who succeeded against all odds, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, NSW, 2023, 296 pages; ISBN 9781761067686.
Lucas Jordan, The Chipilly Six: Unsung heroes of the Great War, NewSouth Publishing, Sydney, NSW, 2023, xi + 307 pages; ISBN 9781742238098.
Hannah Forsyth, Virtue Capitalists: The rise and fall of the professional class in the Anglophone world, 1870–2008, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2023, xii + 299 pages; ISBN 9781009206488.
David Dufty, Charles Todd’s Magnificent Obsession: The epic race to connect Australia to the world, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2024, vii + 354 pages; ISBN 9781761471353.
John Kennedy McLaughlin, The Immigration of Irish Lawyers to Australia in the Nineteenth Century: Causes and Consequences, Alexandria, NSW, The Federation Press, 2024, xxv + 292 pages; ISBN: 9781760024536.
Anne Coote, Knowledge for a Nation: Origins of The Royal Society of New South Wales, Royal Society of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2024, xiii + 304 pages; ISBN 9780645859409.
Robert Cox, Breakout! The Tasmanians who terrorised Victoria, Wakefield Press, Mile End, SA, 2024, xv + 278 pages; ISBN 9781923042728.
Bob Crawshaw, Battle of the Banks: How ad men, barristers and bankers ended Ben Chifley’s boldest plan, Australian Scholarly Publishing, North Melbourne, Vic, 2023, xi + 223 pages; ISBN 9781923267275.
