The Council of the RAHS is seeking expressions of interest for the position of editor of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society (JRAHS). The current editor Adjunct Associate Professor Carol Liston AO and our proof reader Mrs Joy Hughes are stepping down after many years of distinguished services in their respective roles. The RAHS Council thanks Adjunct Associate Professor Carol Liston AO for her service as editor and Mrs Joy Hughes for her service as journal proof reader. … Read More
Christmas Close 2022
The Royal Australian Historical Society wishes all our members and friends a happy Christmas and a safe holiday. We thank you for your support throughout 2022 and look forward to bringing you more history content in 2023. Our Christmas Close period will commence from Wednesday, 21 December 2022, to Monday, 9 January 2023.
What is a Huguenot?
Written by Robert Nash (Secretary and Editor, Huguenot Society of Australia) Recently the Royal Australian Historical Society was kind enough to give me a Certificate of Achievement for services to Huguenot historical research in Australia. This was very good of the Society, and I am grateful, but it has occurred to me that many people will be confused about exactly who these people with the strange name were, and how they are relevant to Australia. In short, the Huguenots were … Read More
The Last Outlaws Podcast
The Last Outlaws won the 2022 NSW Premier’s History Prize in Digital History. Maximilian Reid reviews the podcast for the RAHS.
‘French Connection’ wins 2022 NSW Premier’s History Prize
Congratulations to Alexis Bergantz whose book French Connection won the Australian History Prize for the 2022 NSW Premier’s History Awards. In French Connection, Bergantz draws on a variety of sources to discuss the place of France and French culture in Australia from 1850 to the First World War. In particular, Bergantz uses individual case studies to show how Australians imagined and were influenced by French culture, how a French penal colony in the Pacific dredged up memories of Australia’s convict past, … Read More
Nominations for 2022 RAHS Certificates of Achievement
Nomination Deadline Monday 3 October 2022 RAHS Affiliated Societies play a critical role in promoting local and community history throughout New South Wales. The RAHS Certificate of Achievement honours the wide-ranging contributions made by their members. In 2021, the RAHS awarded ten Certificates of Achievement at its online seminar Exciting New World: Australian Life in the 1920s and 1930s. The seminar was organised by the RAHS Affiliated Societies Committee, so was the perfect event to honour the work of the … Read More
Media Release – Country Calling: History on the Land
Join the RAHS for a special online event to be held via Zoom on 22 October 2022 and learn about new developments in local and community history as we explore Country Calling: History on the Land. Session A – Facing the Truth: How to Create History with Aboriginal Peoples The special event begins with a morning session (10.00am – 12.00pm) that features historians, curators, and archaeologists who practice truth-telling in their history-making. Marika Duczynski (Repatriation Officer and Curator of Indigenous … Read More
Media Release – Agricultural Shows in NSW: Competition, Community, Country
The RAHS is pleased to announce the launch of Competition, Community, Country: Agricultural Shows in NSW, a new website that aims to introduce the history of NSW agricultural shows to the public, including students, teachers, and researchers. With a focus on local history, particularly regional history, this website offers a new way for individuals to learn about and connect with their local community. As RAHS President Dr Iain Stuart explains, ‘the aim of the website is to encourage people to … Read More
Vale Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)
The RAHS would like to offer condolences to those close to Queen Elizabeth II who are experiencing a profound personal loss at her death. As the longest reigning monarch in British history, the late Queen will be remembered for her enormous dedication to the role she performed for more than seventy years. To commemorate her passing, the RAHS has shared images and articles of the 1954 Royal Tour of Queen Elizabeth II, when the 27-year-old Queen and her husband, Prince … Read More
The Role of the Intellectual in Contemporary Public Debate
The Role of the Intellectual in Contemporary Public Debate will be presented by Professor Frank Bongiorno AM on 16 September 2022.
Scholar Talk: “Here’s To’ee”: Tapping the Tooheys Collection
The Tooheys Limited collection has been an untapped resource, in the Mitchell stack, unnoticed by historians. Dr Lisa Murray – 2021 Hertzberg Fellow – has been exploring this special collection of business and industry records. The Tooheys Limited collection, which comprises 300 volumes, provides an important counterpoint to the extensive Tooth & Co collections held elsewhere. Lisa will share some of her insights and discoveries from tapping these historical records, including the architects who were commissioned by Tooheys to redesign their pubs. … Read More
History Week 2022: Hands-On History
The theme for History Week 2022 is ‘Hands-On History’. History Week will run from Saturday 3 to Sunday 11 September 2022.
2022 AGHS Annual National Conference
The 2022 Australian Garden History Society Annual National Conference – Landscape on the Edge: Challenge and Opportunity, will be held in Hobert on 11-13 November 2022.
The Fin de Siècle Imagination in Australia, 1890-1914
This book explores the fin de siècle, an era of powerful global movements and turbulent transition, in Australia and beyond through a series of biographical microhistories. From the first wave feminist Rose Summerfield and the working class radical John Dwyer, to the indigenous rights advocate David Unaipon and the poet Christopher Brennan, Mark Hearn traces the transnational identities, philosophies, ideas and cultures that characterised this era. Examining the struggles and aspirations of fin de siècle lives; respect for the rights … Read More
Shortlists for 2022 NSW Premier’s History Awards
The State Library of NSW announced on 8 August the shortlists for the NSW Premier’s History Awards. The awards recognise distinguished achievement by Australian historians. Eight judges considered 168 entries across five prize categories, with $75,000 in prize money to be awarded. The entries in the Australian History Prize and the NSW Community and Regional History Prize reflect growing interests in Australia’s relationship with the Pacific and Southeast Asia, and the impact of colonisation on Indigenous Australians and our environment. … Read More
Good Servants and Valuable Wives: 190 years since the arrival of the Red Rover in 1832
Written by Patrick Bourke, RAHS Member On 10 August 1832 the Red Rover arrived in Sydney Harbour with 202 free young unmarried Irish women onboard. This ship had left Cork, Ireland, on 10 April 1832. On 15 August the young women left the Red Rover and were housed in the Sydney lumber yard, which was at the southern corner of George and Bridge streets, until they could find employment. There is now a Royal Australian Historical Society green plaque on … Read More
Spies and Sparrows: ASIO and the Cold War
The untold stories of espionage in Australia In the wake of the Second World War and the realisation that the Soviet Union had set up extensive espionage networks around the world, Australia responded by establishing its own spy-hunting agency: ASIO. By the 1950s its counterespionage activities were increasingly supplemented by attempts at countersubversion – identifying individuals and organisations suspected of activities that threatened national security. In doing so, it crossed the boundary from being a professional agency that collected, evaluated … Read More
2022 Lane Cove History Prize
The Lane Cove History Prize is open for 2022, after a year in abeyance because of the lockdown in 2021. We warmly encourage all local historians to make this a good year for the prize, pursuing any of a number of potential themes, to do with persons, places or community groups. Make this a year for opening up possibilities in researching entries, whether written, oral or visual in some aspect of Lane Cove and its environs. In 2022 entrants are … Read More
Gold and the Holtermann Name – Together Again
This October marks 150 years since the discovery of the world’s largest known single mass of gold, the Beyers and Holtermann Specimen, at Hill End, near Bathurst. Often incorrectly referred to as the ‘Holtermann Nugget’, the gold mass contained 3,000 ounces of gold in one lump and was discovered on 19th October 1872 at Star Hope Mine, Hill End, which was originally established by Bernard Otto Holtermann and Louis Beyers. News of this stunning find quickly reverberated around the world … Read More
Trailblazing Women of Australian Public Broadcasting, 1945-1975
Trailblazing Women of Australian Public Broadcasting, 1945-1975 offers a compelling new perspective of Australian radio and television history. It chronicles how a group of female producers defied the odds and forged remarkable careers in public-affairs production at the ABC in the post-war decades. Kay Kinane, Catherine King, Therése Denny and Joyce Belfrage were ambitious and resourceful producers, part of the vanguard of Australian broadcasters who used mass media as a vehicle for their social and political activism. Fiercely dedicated to … Read More