History Council of South Australia Fellowship

Fellowship

The HCSA Fellowship is open from 1 October until 30 November each year, submissions may be made by email to [email protected]. The successful recipient will be notified in December.

Fellowship Description

The History Council of South Australia (HCSA) Fellowship provides support for all Australians researching and writing in an area of South Australian history. It is valued up to $2,000.

The HCSA Fellowship was launched on 21 August 2020 in association with the State Library of South Australia and through the generous support of donors, including the Marsden Szwarcbord Foundation.

Fellowship holders will be expected to make use of the resources and support of the State Library of South Australia and, where appropriate, other South Australian cultural institutions and repositories in pursuing a dedicated program of historical research. Access to relevant resources and support will be facilitated by the HCSA in collaboration with the relevant institution(s).

The duration of the research work undertaken will be determined by the Fellowship holder in consultation with the HCSA and relevant institutions. It is a requirement of the Fellowship that the holder will make a presentation on the research project at a time and in a format agreed with the HCSA.

Fellowship Details

A key objective of the History Council of South Australia (HCSA) is to promote research, writing and publication specifically in the area of South Australian history. To this end the HCSA has established an annual Fellowship.

The Fellowship, valued at $2,000, will be funded from donations and the annual interest earnings accrued from a dedicated Fellowship Fund established within the framework of the Australian Cultural Fund.

The Fellowship will be awarded annually to an emerging or established historian. Advertised by the HCSA, it will be open to historians resident in Australia or abroad.

The selection of the annual Fellowship holder will be by a competitive process. A requirement of gaining a Fellowship will be for the holder to give a presentation on the research project and its findings at a time and in a format agreed with the HCSA.

The HCSA, in addition to funding the Fellowship, will also assist in putting appropriate arrangements in place with the institution(s) where the research activity is to be carried out.

2024 HCSA Fellow

The HCSA would like to congratulate the 2024 HCSA Fellow: Dr Alice Neikirk.

Project Title: ‘Police Matrons (and their Advocates) in South Australia’

Abstract: This year marks the 125-year anniversary of the first official recognition of a police matron in Australia, and yet few have ever heard about these working women. It is also not obvious from the designation of ‘first police matron’ that women worked in this role for at least fifty years before receiving official recognition. This is unfortunate because these women opened the door for females to move into the police force, yet their role is still either completely unrecognized or dismissed as an extension of her husband's policing duties. The State Records of South Australia have what appears to be the largest collection of police matron diaries in Australia. This is an invaluable resource to help us understand what these women did, how they contributed to the integration of women into policing, and their role in Australian history. The State Library of South Australia houses several microfilmed resources regarding the advocacy work that supported the appointment of police matrons. Bringing these two resources together will help underscore the role of female-led organizations, like the Woman’s Temperance League, had in social reform. This study will also contribute to a deeper understanding
of women’s experiences in Victorian era Australia.

Judges' Citation:

Dr Alice Neikirk has a PhD from the Australian National University and is currently a Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Law and Justice at the University of Newcastle. In her teaching, she uses historic artifacts to engage students with the history of policing and incarceration during the Victorian era. She has published extensively on the historical records associated criminal and international tribunals. A passionate believer in making knowledge accessible, she communicates her work via radio, podcasts, academic publications and The Conversation.

The judging panel awarded Dr Neikirk’s project for the 2024 HCSA Fellowship because it promises to combine individual and institutional histories in ways that not only engage with a specific area of history that is yet to be investigated but also yield new insights about the hidden work of women which has long been relied on by the State and society. The fact that South Australia holds what appears to be the largest collection of police matron records in Australia, indicates the project is likely to produce findings of national significance, while Dr Neikirk’s comparative investigations into Police Matrons in the UK and North America also suggest this project will situate the South Australian story within fruitful international contexts.

Highly Recommended Prize

In addition to the contribution the Marsden Szwarcbord Foundation has made to the annual HCSA Fellowship, this year the Foundation has also made a gift of $1000 to award a Highly Recommended Prize to another applicant, whose project promises to make a unique contribution to South Australian research.

The recipient of the Highly Recommended Prize for 2024 is Dr Angela Gurr.

Project: ‘Combining historical records and archaeological methods to identified individuals in unmarked graves and increase understanding of their lifestyle challenges'

Abstract:

The aim of this study is to explore how combining information from historical documentation with advances in bioarchaeological analysis of human skeletons can enhance understanding of life histories and the identification of previously unidentified individuals from the past. A review of the accessibility of documentation will consider whether diverse information should be grouped into corpora and digitized to advance research opportunities through improved availability. 

The project involves an extensive investigation of multiple sources of historical documentation including burial records, ships logs, applications for free passage to South Australia, official government registers such as death certificates, coroner’s inquest, state and local government land ownership records, 19th century newspapers, and historical rare books. These sources will be used to build life histories and potential identities for four unknown individuals excavated from unmarked graves in St Mary’s Church Cemetery, South Australia. South Australian historical records will contribute to the identification of individuals buried in the unmarked section of the St Mary’s Anglican Church Cemetery. When investigated in conjunction with the finding from the analysis of these excavated skeletons, these sources will provide information relating to their life histories, health, lifestyles and habits, occupation, and causes of death. Primary and secondary sources will be used to provide contextual background to their lives and those of their family before, during, and after migration to this new 19th-century colony.

Judges' Citation:

Dr Gurr has a Bachelor of Archaeology at Flinders University while her PhD from the University of Adelaide, ‘A view of colonial life in South Australia: An osteological investigation of the health status among 19th-century migrant settlers’, received the Dean’s commendation for Doctoral Excellence in 2023. Her interest in historical archaeology and the health of migrant settlers to South Australia led her to research the skeletal remains of a sample of 19th-century European individuals from St Mary’s Church Cemetery, SA. As a postdoctoral scholar she uses new bioarcheological techniques to examine the skeletons and allow more in-depth understanding of health challenges. The judges highly recommended this project as they recognised Gurr’s interdisciplinary methods Gurr have broader methodological application while also yielding fresh insight into previously unknown individuals at St Mary’s Church Cemetery and enriching our understanding of the early decades of the South Australian colony.

Past Fellows

2023: Mrs Margaret Boult, ‘The Apothecary and the Surgeon: Medical Responsibility and Care in Early South Australia’'. Read more here.

2022: Dr Heidi Ing, ‘Settler-Colonial Land Speculation: Investors in South Australia’s ‘Town Acres’’. Read more here.

2021: Dr Rebecca Jones, ‘Drought, flood, heat and dust: living with extreme weather in arid Australia’. Read more here.

How Can You Help?

Any donation no matter how small is welcome and can be submitted via the DGR (deductible gift recipient) platform.