RAHS Latest News
Outside Off – My Brother Jack
Written by Maximilian Reid, RAHS Volunteer‘ ‘Our Don Bradman’ Australian stories flow with cricket. Perhaps none more so than Donald Bradman, whose bronze statues, street names and ubiquitous average of 99.94 are full throated in their praise. This edition of Outside Off is not. In keeping with past editions, we seek to illustrate Australian society through cricket afforded by cricket’s unique moral dimensions. One of the most complex moral dimensions of cricket and one mirrored in today’s is...
‘This is the ABC’
Written by RAHS volunteer Elizabeth Heffernan On Friday, 1 July 1932, after the 8pm bells of Sydney’s General Post Office, Conrad Charlton announced to the country: “This is the Australian Broadcasting Commission.” [1] It was the ABC’s first wireless radio broadcast after the Australian Broadcasting Commission Act 1932 was passed on 17 May. The transmission is estimated to have reached 6% of the country’s population at the time—almost 400 000 people from as far away as Perth. [2] The leaders...
Outside Off – Riot of 1879
Riot, Bets and Class Cricket is now the prevailing amusement of the day. Let no man henceforth set up for a sporting character whose name is not enrolled among the ‘gentlemen cricketers’ of Sydney”[1] The Sydney Gazette, on the formation of a new cricket club, 1832. Victorian gentility, civility, and sobriety. If there is ever an image to be conjured of early colonial cricket, it seems to be this one. [2] However, early colonial cricket in Sydney was coarse. Inter-colonial rivalry, gambling,...
Anzac Day 1918: Different, but not forgotten
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS volunteer The twice-a-day Amiens train rattles into Villers-Bretonneux station, dead autumn leaves swept to the sides of the platform and rusted overpass looming above the tracks. The small, French village is silent, cobbled streets empty in the early morning gloom. Google Maps points the way past the houses and into the fields beyond; the path laid out before us is slippery with mud and wet cut grass. Fresh rain promises. It is three kilometres from the...
Mary Jane Cain (1844-1929)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2022, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from previous years to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this webpage contains the names of people who have passed away. Affectionately known as...
Louise Mack (1870-1935)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month. Audacious, unpredictable, bewitching – these are just some of the words used to describe Australian writer, poet, and First World War correspondent Louise...
Mary Ann Bugg (1834-1905)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this webpage contains the images and names of people who have passed away. Proud Worimi woman,...
Isabel Letham (1899-1995)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month. In May 1980, Pam Burridge won the country’s inaugural women’s surfing championship at age fifteen. Among the crowd of spectators was eighty-year-old Isabel...
Rose Quong (1879-1972)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month. Rose Quong was one of Australia’s first great actors. During a career that spanned decades, continents, from stage to screen, Rose not only performed...
Iza Coghlan (1868-1946)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month. Over one hundred years ago, the gender imbalance in the medical profession was even greater than it is today. There were simply no women medical students,...
Mary Jane Beattie (1839-1907)
Written by Dr Catherine Bishop, Macquarie University To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month. Among the pieces of furniture exuding appropriate historic ambience in RAHS’s History House in Macquarie Street is a magnificent sideboard. The silver...
Fanny Balbuk Yooreel (1840-1907)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month in 2020, the Royal Australian Historical Society will continue our work from last year to highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our webpage, Women’s History Month. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are advised that this webpage contains the images and names of people who have passed away. In 2006, the Federal...
RAHS Weekly News Round-Up