RAHS Latest News
A Groundbreaking Bicentenary: St James’ Church, King Street
Written by RAHS Volunteer, Elizabeth Heffernan On the 7th of October 1819, builders under the guidance of convict architect Francis Greenway laid the foundation stone for what was intended to be Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s new courthouse on King Street. A far grander building was planned for George Street as Sydney’s new metropolitan cathedral – It was not to be. Sent all the way to Sydney from London, Commissioner John Bigge questioned the expense of Macquarie’s proposed cathedral, and...
Convict Flash Language
Written by RAHS Volunteer and Copywriter Christina King This blog post is part of a series entitled ‘The Convict Experience: Love, Life and Liberty Beyond the Chains’. Each month we will explore a different – and often rather unusual – type of primary evidence historians can use to hear convict voices telling their own stories. Previous editions on Convict Tattoos and Love Tokens are still available to read online. What was flash language and who used it? Originating in the criminal underworld...
Convict Love Tokens
Written by RAHS Volunteer and Copywriter, Christina King This blog post is part of a series entitled ‘The Convict Experience: Love, Life and Liberty Beyond the Chains’. Each month we will explore a different – and often rather unusual – type of primary evidence historians can use to hear convict voices telling their own stories. Movingly known as ‘leaden hearts’[1] and ‘likened to portable graffiti’[2], convict love tokens have been described as ‘a unique chance to see the convicts as they saw...
Convict Tattoos
Written by RAHS Volunteer and Copywriter, Christina King This blog post is part of a series entitled ‘The Convict Experience: Love, Life and Liberty Beyond the Chains’. Each month we will explore a different – and often rather unusual – type of primary evidence historians can use to hear convict voices telling their own stories. Revisionist history has done a significant job redefining convict history as more than simply an account of troublesome prisoners shipped to a foreign land. Primary...
Sasha Nekvapil (1919-2014)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Royal Australian Historical Society will highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our new webpage, Women’s History Month. For many Australians, skiing at Thredbo is a winter holiday pastime. What people may not realise is how much these iconic ski-fields owe to Czechoslovakian migrant Alexandra Nekvapilová, known...
Edith Cowan (1861-1932)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Royal Australian Historical Society will highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our new webpage, Women’s History Month. Edith Cowan is familiar to most Australians as one of the faces on our fifty-dollar banknote, commemorating her achievement as the first Australian woman to serve as a member of parliament....
Thancoupie (1937-2011)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Royal Australian Historical Society will highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our new 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. Dr. Thancoupie Gloria Fletcher James of the Thanakwithi...
Dorothy Hill (1907-1997)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Royal Australian Historical Society will highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our new webpage, Women’s History Month. Professor Dorothy Hill is a well-known name in Australia’s scientific circles. The first woman elected president of the Australian Academy of Science, and the first female university professor in...
Ethel Foster (1870 – 1955)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Royal Australian Historical Society will highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our new webpage, Women’s History Month. The Royal Australian Historical Society would not be where it is today without the remarkable contributions of one of its founding female members, Josephine Ethel Foster. Born in Paddington in...
Nancy-Bird Walton (1915-2009)
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Royal Australian Historical Society will highlight Australian women that have contributed to our history in various and meaningful ways. You can browse the women featured on our new webpage, Women’s History Month. Born in Kew, NSW, in 1915, Nancy-Bird Walton stayed true to her name as a pioneering female pilot in Australia from the time she received her commercial licence at age 19 until her death in 2009....
Malthusianism and the prosecution of Thomas Walker
Written by Christine Yeats, RAHS President The twenty-eight year old Thomas Walker, spiritualist, secularist, free-thought lecturer, journalist and politician, encountered the full force of the law when he presented the last of his series of Thursday evening lectures in the Secular Association’s rooms at 20 Oxford Street in Darlinghurst on 9 April 1885. [1] The subject of his lecture was Moral and scientific checks to over-population; or large families and poverty. [2] Walker was an advocate...
Valentine’s Day 1900
Written by Elizabeth Heffernan, RAHS Volunteer On Valentine’s Day in 1900, two schoolgirls and their maths teacher went missing from a picnic at Hanging Rock and were never seen again – or so author Joan Lindsay led her readers to believe in the classic Australian novel Picnic at Hanging Rock, first published in 1967. A short note from the author prefaces the story: “Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction, my readers must decide for themselves. As the fateful picnic took place in...
RAHS Weekly News Round-Up