eNewsletter
Newsletter 19 December 2024
News
Message from the HCSA President
As 2024 draws to a close d 2025 beckons, I wanted to take the opportunity to wish HCSA members and friends all the very best for the Christmas and New Year period, and to thank our extremely hardworking executive, as well as Jess, who puts together our invaluable newsletter.
It has been a busy, exciting and in some regards challenging year for the history community this year. We continue to advocate strenuously on history-related issues, and support the activities of historians statewide and beyond with our prizes and awards. Most recently we’ve enjoyed our Regional Lecture in Mount Gambier which included a range of presentations and Q&A sessions from history related community organisations and historians. We’re already planning next year’s event, so keep an eye out for news about that.
In this newsletter we’re also pleased to announce the 2025 History Council SA And State Library SA Fellow, David Reilly. Congratulations to David! We’re really excited to see the research he has planned come to fruition and we’re very pleased to be able to support him in his work. A reminder too that nominations for our 2025 HCSA Historian Awards have also just opened.
Finally, from January this newsletter will be published monthly rather than fortnightly. This might mean that members and friends will have to send in their news and events a little earlier than they might have done in the past. And if you’re still looking to join the History Council or offer a donation that will support our efforts to represent history, historians and historical organisations, please visit our website membership page.
All the very best for 2025!
Matt Fitzpatrick
(President HCSA)
The 2025 History Council of South Australia Fellow has been announced
David Reilly for his project Date Palm History of South Australia, which will trace the introduction and cultivation of date palms in the state.
Read more about him and his project here
The 2025 History Council of South Australia Historian Awards are now open for nominations
This year we have seven categories:
- Historian of the Year
- Emerging Historian
- Life Long Historian
- Digital Technologies Award
- Regional History Award
- Community History Award
- Oral History Excellence
HCSA Regional Event Summary
This year's HCSA Annual Regional Lecture was co-hosted by Mount Gambier Library at the Riddoch Arts and Cultural Centre on Boandik Country, on Thursday 28 November 2024. The day was a huge success, many thanks to everyone involved, particularly Danni Reade (Mount Gambier Library), Dr Kiera Lindsay, Professor Matt Fitzpatrick, Dr Carmel Pacale, Dr David Sweet, Angela Goode, Peter Christopher and everyone who had a hand in making it happen.
Read the full summary on our website here
Become a Member of the History Council of South Australia
The HCSA is the state’s peak history body, providing a representative voice on historical issues and celebrating and raising the profile of history across South Australia.
The bigger our membership base, the stronger our collective voice for history.
We invite current members to renew their membership (If you have not already done so), and our newsletter friends to consider joining the Council.
By becoming a member you help support:
- Funding for the HCSA Fellowship
- The Historian Awards and Wakefield Press Essay Prize
- The annual HCSA Regional Lecture
- The HCSA fortnightly newsletter
- Strong, non-partisan advocacy on issues related to history in South Australia.
For more information, please visit the HCSA membership page here.
Subscriptions can be paid via credit card, EFT, cheque or bank transfer, or you can choose to generate an invoice for payment.
You may also like to consider making a tax deductible donation to the HCSA, which can be done when you join, or separately by following this link.
We thank you again for your support.
Treasures of the Viking Age: The Galloway Hoard
In 2025 the Galloway Hoard is making it's way to the South Australian Museum.
The Galloway Hoard is the richest find of rare and unique Viking-age objects ever made in the UK. Buried around AD 900 and only discovered in 2014 in southwest Scotland, the Hoard contains a stunning variety of rare and beautiful objects and illustrates the rich history of Viking trade that stretched from Scandinavia and the Atlantic across into the Middle East and Asia.
8 February - 27 July 2025. Tickets on sale early 2025.
New collection at the UniSA Library
The History of STEM Collection, recently donated by Peter Sydenham, was originally collected to support his research into the developmental history of measurement and instrumentation.
The collection spans across all STEM specialties, but also incorporates museum pamphlets and catalogues, as well as works on the fine arts and humanities.
Further information on the Library website
View the University's Special Collections Guide
Burnside Historical Society Annual Journal
The Society's journal is now available, featuring seven articles of local interest and the society's activities over the year.
Read it here (pdf download).
Eat the Invaders
This new television program hosted by Tony Armstrong used the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia library for a portion of filming earlier this year. This series attempts to 'turn our unwanted ecological trash into desirable culinary gold.'
Further information on ABC iView
Save the Queen: The Priscilla Project
A project is underway to restore the Priscilla bus from the film 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert'. She was discovered on a property in rural New South Wales, having survived fire, floods, and exposure to the elements. The History Trust of South Australia is seeking donations to restore the bus and display her at the National Motor Museum in Birdwood.
Further information through the HTSA
Adelaide Museum of South Australian History
The History Trust are inviting responses to a survey about a proposed new museum: the Adelaide Museum of South Australia's History.
Find out more and have your say on the proposed museum here.
Around the country
Pompeii: inside a lost city
An immersive experience on life in the ancient city. Combines soundscapes and surrounding projections with over 90 objects including frescoes, jewellery, sculptures, and pottery. Coming to the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. From 13 December 2024.
Further information and tickets through the National Museum website
State Library NSW Fellows announced
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of their prestigious awards program, the NSW State Library has unveiled its largest-ever cohort of fellows.
Read more on the library's website here
Lectures, exhibitions, and events
Workshop: An introduction to oral history techniques and practice
This workshop introduces oral history practice, focusing on research, ethics, equipment, interviewing techniques and will include a discussion on podcasting and the local oral history collection. It is suitable for community volunteers, family historians, students or anyone with an interest in recording oral histories, creating podcasts or interviewing for family history projects.
Friday 14 February 2025, 10am - 3.30pm. State Library of South Australia.
Further information and registration through the Oral History SA/NT website
Registration through Humanitix here
Royal Australian Historical Society Evening event: A Legacy in Print
Celebrate the storied past of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, an essential outlet for Australian history since 1906. This event will be chaired by Dr. Samuel White and provide a platform for engaging discussions with some of its past contributors.In Sydney and online via Zoom. 25 February 2025.
Further information and registration through their website here.
Radical Textiles
This exhibition celebrates the cutting-edge innovations, enduring traditions, and bodies of shared knowledge that have been folded into fabric and cloth over the past 150 years.
At the Art Gallery of South Australia, 23 November 2024 - 30 March 2025.
Tickets start at $15.
Further information through the AGSA website
Camel trains to steel wheels: Life on the trans-Australian railway
This new exhibition features archival records, photographs and footage that brings to life the railway's first 60 years.
At the State Library of SA until 26 January 2025.
Further information through the National Archives website
Book releases
Agora: New thinking about old histories
The latest edition of Agora explores new evidence and academic debates that are reshaping our understanding of pivotal historical events. In this issue, published by the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria, historians explain the latest scholarship on a range of topics including:
- the Russian, American, French and Industrial revolutions
- Australia’s frontier wars
- China’s engagement with the West under Mao
- parallels between the fall of the Roman Republic and democratic tensions in the USA today
- an extraordinary debate about Egypt’s pharaohs
- new thinking about teaching History.
Agora can be purchased as a digital download for $10 from htavshop.com.au.
*Agora is currently seeking submissions for an edition on the theme ‘Animals in History’. Contact [email protected] to pitch a story idea targeted at the Victorian History curriculum.
Breakout! The Tasmanians who terrorised Victoria, by Robert Cox
Two killers. A tainted trial. A bungled execution.
The killers were Pevay and Timme. In 1841 they slew two men and wounded others in an angry rampage through the Victorian countryside.
As Tasmanian Aborigines, they had many reasons to be angry.
When teenagers they'd been jailed for being black. They'd taken unwilling part in the ethnic cleansing of Tasmania. Forcedly interned in a bleak offshore gulag, they'd watched helplessly as friends and family died of disease and despair.
Then they were exiled to Victoria where colonists victimised them. It was the last straw. They stole guns and seized their freedom.
Their breakout was vengeful and violent. Farms were raided, settlers shot. Despite firefights and ambushes, they evaded pursuers for weeks before being captured in a blaze of gunfire.
Their murder trial was a farce. Public officials lied under oath. The judge was biased and inept. The verdict was a foregone conclusion.
Now, for the first time, their tragic story is told in full. From their perilous boyhood during Tasmania's Black War to their botched hanging in a crowded Melbourne street.
Further information and purchase through Wakefield Press
Calls for papers
Call for Papers
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History has launched a new 'Current Debates' section, edited by Dr Jonas Fossli Gjersø! If you are interested in contributing, please see the CfP for more information.
More information on H-Net
