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.
April 2026
RAHS Day Lecture – Saffron Incorporated: The First King of the Cross: IN-PERSON SOLD OUT
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 1 April 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
CLICK HERE TO BOOK A TICKET – only online tickets are available. If you would like to join the waiting list for in-person tickets, please contact history@rahs.org.au
Event Description:
Wherever you find entertainers performing in neon-lit pubs and clubs, chances are you will find a wannabe gangster or two hanging around. Selling sex and drugs has always been a way to make a fast buck. Abe Saffron figured all this out very quickly. He was a chancer who kickstarted his criminal career SP bookmaking and receiving stolen goods. While he earned himself a quid or two, he wanted much more, and he was ruthless enough to seize any moment to get it … no matter what he had to do.
In Saffron Incorporated, music industry legend Stuart Coupe shows how showbusiness and the underworld are intrinsically linked, and how the original King of the Cross lay the foundations for more than fifty years of intrigue, murder and mayhem.
About the speaker:
Stuart Coupe is an author, music commentator, independent artist publicist and radio broadcaster who has been involved with music all his life. Amongst the books he has written, edited or collaborated on are The New Music (1980), The New Rock ‘n’ Roll (1983), The Promoters (2003), Gudinski (2015), Tex (2017), Roadies (2018) and Paul Kelly, the Man, the Music and the Life In Between (2021), which was shortlisted for Biography Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards.
RAHS Special Lecture – Eirene Mort and Nora Weston, artist and artisan
Event Date & Time: Thursday, 16 April 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
Event Description:
In Double Act, art and design meet social history and queer history. Two Australian ‘New Women’ met in 1906 and shared an artist studio in Sydney. Eirene’s skills as artist, designer, etcher, potter and needleworker were complemented by Nora’s in metalwork, woodcarving and carpentry. Founding members of the Arts and Crafts Society NSW, they designed their own house and studio in Vaucluse.
About the speaker:
Dr Sylvia Martin is the author of five biographies of women who have been neglected in Australian cultural history. Ida Leeson: A life was awarded the 2008 Magarey Medal for Biography and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Award and the Nita B Kibble Award. A book of memoir essays, Sky Swimming, was published in 2020, and her 2026 biography is Double Act: Eirene Mort and Nora Kate Weston.
RAHS-WEA Workshop – What Lies Beneath: A Deeper Dig into the Archives
Randwick Public School, portable classroom, 1913 (Museums of History NSW)
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 29 April 2026 @ 11.00 am – 1.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: RAHS Members $35 | Non-Members $39
Event Description:
This course will offer practical guidance on how to unlock the rich resources of the NSW State Archives Collection, now part of Museums of History NSW, using a selection of case studies. The session will highlight strategies for navigating and interpreting archival records, focusing on stories of individuals, communities, and institutions. Participants will learn how to combine traditional archival research with online tools and resources such as Ancestry and Find My Past, gaining insights into records ranging from immigration and convict history to land, education, and family life. The presentation will empower researchers to confidently trace and contextualise the past.
About the speaker:
Christine Yeats is an archivist and historical researcher with 35 years’ experience, including senior roles at Museums of History NSW (formerly State Records NSW). She managed access to the State’s archives, outreach, and public programs until her retirement in 2012. A past President of both the RAHS and the Federation of Australian Historical Societies, she is also a member of the Australian Dictionary of Biography’s Revision Sub-Committee. In 2023, she was awarded a RAHS Fellowship for her outstanding contributions to Australian history.
RAHS Special Lecture – Battle of the Banks: Ben Chifley’s Boldest Move: CANCELLED
Event Date & Time: Thursday, 16 April 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
Unfortunately we have had to cancel this event.
Event Description:
Bob Crawshaw will explore the dramatic story of Prime Minister Ben Chifley’s 1947 attempt to nationalise Australia’s banking system. It sparked a furious clash between government, the High Court, press barons and business interests, revealing how ideology, law, media and communications and financial power collided in a defining moment for Australian democracy. This episode shaped Australia’s economic future and is among the most contested political struggles in our history.
About the speaker:
Bob Crawshaw is a writer, former soldier, diplomat, and award-winning marketer with a sharp eye for history and politics. He specialises in Australia’s postwar history, blending rigorous research with engaging narrative.
May 2026
RAHS Day Lecture – Local History, Family History, Personal History, National History: Case studies and the complexity of Australia’s European Past
William Waterhouse (Supplied: Richard Waterhouse)
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 6 May 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
Event Description:
This presentation will explore how these four historical approaches can be combined to establish more complex understandings not only of the history of individual families but also of the histories of localities and the nation. To illustrate these arguments, I will present four examples.
The first focuses on the Entwistle family, including Martha and her son William, both convicted of forgery, who arrived in NSW as convicts and succeeded in creating new lives for themselves and their families. The second deals with William and Mary Susannah Waterhouse, respectable citizens of nineteenth-century Grafton, who lived with a deeply buried secret- they were not married, and their two children’s real father was a man Susannah had abandoned in Melbourne. Victorian respectability, it seems, was not always what it claimed to be. The third example focuses on Earle Waterhouse, a Mudgee schoolteacher who joined the RAAF in World War II and rose to the rank of Squadron Leader. Although he experienced a series of major traumas during the war, he also made a significant contribution to Allied success in the Pacific through his role in organising all Allied mine-laying missions in the period from June 1944 through to the end of the war. His life is a case study in the enduring cost of war.
About the speaker:
Richard Waterhouse is Emeritus Professor of History, School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, University of Sydney. He was formerly Bicentennial Professor of Australian History and Head of the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the same institution. He is the author of six books and more than 70 articles and chapters on aspects of Australian and United States history. His most recent book is Land of Promise: a history of European Australia through the lives of seven generations of my family (Kerr Publishing, 2025).
RAHS Walking Tour – South Eveleigh Locomotive Workshops
NSWGR Class O-446 Class No. 4474-6-0 at Eveleigh Workshops, c. 1920s (Image from the ARHS Collection courtesy of the University of Newcastle Library’s Special Collections)
This event is held as part of the Australian Heritage Festival
Event Date & Time: Friday, 15 May 2026 @ 11.00 am – 12.00 pm and 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: South Eveleigh, 2 Locomotive St, Eveleigh NSW 2015
Cost: $20
Event Description:
This walking tour introduces visitors to the history of the NSW Railways and to the heritage adaptive re-use of the former Eveleigh Locomotive Workshops into a brilliant commercial and leisure hub. First called the Australian Technology Park and now known as South Eveleigh, the place features awesome industrial architecture and astonishing remnants of industrial machinery, as well as a proud legacy of industrial activism.
About the tour guide:
Dr Bronwyn Hanna is a heritage consultant who spent 15 years in academia, including writing a PhD and two co-authored books on women architects in NSW. She has since worked for 22 years as a heritage professional with government, industry and community groups. Her favourite job was five years with Sydney Trains Heritage, helping conserve and interpret their 200 heritage-listed railway stations in NSW.
June 2026
RAHS Day Lecture – Historical Implications of the Life of Sir Gerard Brennan
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 3 June 2026 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 (hybrid)
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Sir Gerard Brennan’s life provides a powerful lens through which to view the transformation of Australia during the twentieth century – and it illuminates two compelling paradoxes. The first is how one man was both shaped by history and played a crucial role in shaping it. The second concerns the judiciary itself: its twin responsibilities to secure the legitimacy of law by ensuring it faithfully reflects society’s fundamental values, and simultaneously to guide society through changed circumstances.
Brennan’s Queensland Catholic upbringing, his father’s career in politics and on the Supreme Court, and his own experiences at the Bar during the Bjelke-Petersen era rooted him in a legal world still essentially British in orientation – yet those same experiences sharpened his conviction about what the Rule of Law truly demands of a civilised society. Moving to the federal sphere in the mid-1970s, as inaugural President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal he developed a distinctive and enduring approach to securing Administrative Justice. He joined the High Court in 1981 and in conjunction with the other judges, played a pivotal role in ‘Australianising’ the law – in parallel with the Australia Acts, the republican debate, and a broader search for national identity.
The talk focuses on three landmarks of that transformation: the Mabo judgment, which rewrote the nation’s relationship with its own past; Marion’s case, in which Brennan enunciated a compelling and profound legal approach to the protection of the dignity of people with disabilities; and the Constitution’s implied protection of political communication – a doctrine that continues to shape Australian public life. The underlying theme is that Brennan was no revolutionary. He believed in precedent, incremental change, and service. Yet this modest, traditional man – a Sunday-night volunteer at St Vincent de Paul – helped shape the law to secure a more just Australia. His life illustrates how History is often made by conservators, not crusaders.
About the speaker:
Jeff FitzGerald obtained an Honours degree in Law from Melbourne University and a PhD in the Sociology of Law from Northwestern University in the USA. He then taught Sociology and Legal Studies at La Trobe University, provided policy advice in the justice and governance areas in the Victorian Premier’s Department, and was Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Attorney-General’s Department. He then spent 10 years as Registrar at the University of Technology Sydney. Following his retirement at the end of 2006, he has acted as a consultant in the area of Higher Education governance and has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the AustLII Foundation, which provides free online access to a very broad range of legal authorities, writings and other related material.