eNewsletter
Newsletter 20 December 2025
From the President
In this final newsletter for 2025, I want to thank all those who have helped to make 2025 such a success for the History Council and the whole SA history community. Thank you to everyone who has attended one of our events or one of our members’ events. It speaks to the vibrancy of our community that history is so well supported here in SA.
Thank you as well to all of those who applied for a fellowship or nominated someone for our Historian of the Year awards. Whether you were successful or not, we’re constantly impressed by the breadth and depth of history work being done. We hope to see as many applications for these things next year as there were this year, so please start thinking about nominees for next year’s awards. A big thank you to those who joined the History Council for the first time and to those who kept up there membership as a way of showing their support for our state’s history community.
Finally, I want to thank our hard-working History Council team, the executive and general committees, including VP Lainie Anderson, Treasurer Carmel Pascale, Secretary Amanda Wells, as well as our media team – Andrew Buxton who curates our Facebook page and, of course, Jess Fairey who puts together this newsletter each month.
All the very best to you and yours for the festive season, and I look forward to seeing you all again in 2026 for another big year of history events and advocacy!
Matt
News
HCSA Fellowship winner to explore how South Australians mobilised against uranium mining in the ’70s
Adelaide historian Dr Nicholas Herriot has been awarded the prestigious 2026 HCSA Fellowship for his project “Leave it in the Ground: South Australia, Uranium, and the Atomic Age”. The project, which was the unanimous winner in a strong field of ten nominations, will investigate how South Australians mobilised against uranium mining and grappled with the promise and peril of the atomic age, focusing on the 1970s and early 1980s – a period of intense political controversy. Dr Nicholas Herriot is an early career researcher specialising in Australian labour, environmental and social movement history. He teaches history at the University of Adelaide and serves on the executive of the Labour History Society (SA). Supported by the State Library of South Australia, the $2000 HCSA Fellowship is open to all Australians exploring South Australian history, and aims to foster research that deepens our understanding of the state’s past and its contributions to wider histories.
CHASS Calls for a National Approach to support for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences in Australian universities
The Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) has issued a media release about the national crisis in humanities, arts, and social sciences (HASS) in Australian Universities.
Seeking information and leads on Italian Internees sent to the NT
Fred Marrone is seeking information for a project on the history of Italians in the NT. He is seeking the names and occupations of Italians who were sent to work or migrated to the NT from 1845 to 1995, and the work they were involved in.
If you are able to help, please contact him on 0408 508 819 or via email: [email protected]
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.
Around the country
National Library of Australia 2025 Community Heritage Grant (CHG) recipients announced
50 community organisations are receiving a CHG in 2025. The program is currently in ints 31st year of operation and supports community organisations to care for Australian cultural collections of national significance.
State Library of NSW 2026 fellows announced
The State Library has awarded $314,000 in prestigious research Fellowships across nine categories.
Further information and list of fellows available through the State Library NSW website
Lectures, exhibitions, and events
Too Deadly: Ten Years of Tarnanthi
This major exhibition celebrates Tarnanthi's first decade, assembling over 200 diverse works of outstanding contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art seen in previous Tarnanthi Festivals.
Until 18 Jan 2026. Free entry. Art Gallery of South Australia.
Further information and information through the Art Gallery website
When Adelaide Trams went 'kaboom' for a good cause
In October 1915, two retired horse-drawn trams collided in a staged explosion at Adelaide Oval, drawing thousands of spectators. The stunt raised funds for soldiers wounded at Gallipoli and became part of South Australia's first official Anzac Day commemorations.
If walls could talk
Explore the story of two South Australian farmhouses inhabited from the 1850s until 2013. Through haunting photography by Alexandra McOrist and newspaper clippings, this project revives the lives of settler families.
Genealogy SA events
Unlocking the Power of Spreadsheets
Learn how to unlock the power of spreadsheets for genealogy with this online workshop!
Monday 19 January, 6:30pm to 9:00pm
$49 Genealogy SA members / $99 non-members
Further information and registration through Trybooking
Sharpen Your Research Skills
Are you ready to take the next step in your family history journey? Learn how to sharpen your research skills and take yourself from a hobbyist family historian to the level of a professional genealogist with this in-person workshop!
Sunday 22 February, 10:00am to 4:00pm
$79 Genealogy SA members / $129 non-members
Further information and registration through Trybooking
Genealogy SA Library Tours
Are you new to Genealogy SA? Would you like to learn more about the family history resources available at the Genealogy SA Library? Join us for one of our monthly library tours, starting in January 2026 on the second Saturday at 2:00 pm and the last Tuesday at 11:00 am
FREE for Genealogy SA members / $20 non-members, includes library access for the day
Port River Heritage Tours on the MV Archie Badenoch
Take a tour along the Port River on the historic vessel Archie Badenoch. Built during WWII by General Motors Holden for the Royal Australian Navy, the vessel was commissioned by the SA Police in December 1946.
This tour will take approximately 1 hour with stops along the way at many of the historical areas and points of interest.
15 and 18 January 2026, at Harts Mill, Mundy Street Port Adelaide.
In conversation: sharing immigr-action stories
The photo exhibition Immigr-action presents the stories of newly arrived Brazillian migrants in Adelaide, exploring how migration shapes health and wellbeing.
10 January 2026 at 1pm, 82 Kintore Avenue, Adelaide. No bookings required.
Online exhibition: 1975
This exhibition at the National Library of Australia is open until 9 March 2026, and available to explore virtually online.
Explore the music, fashion, politics, literature, news, film and more from the era that shaped Australian life and transformed the way we saw the world.
View the online exhibition through the National Library website
Our Story: Aboriginal-Chinese people in Australia
An exhibition at the National Museum of Australia which sheds light on the little-known history of Aboriginal and Chinese relations in colonial Australia.
Until 27 January 2026.
Book releases
Nooks and Crannies, by the History Council of South Australia
South Australian historical groups and museums keen to boost their income are invited to order copies of the History Council of South Australia’s new publication Nooks and Crannies at wholesale price from publisher Wakefield Press.
Nooks and Crannies: Stories of South Australia is an eclectic collection of short essays on South Australian inventions, migration, industry, heritage, museums and associations, both new and old, Indigenous and settler. RRP: $39.95.
For more information or to order, contact Michael Bollen at Wakefield Press at [email protected]
Please note: wholesale is 40% off the RRP (or $23.97) with free delivery for orders over $100!
Ikarians in South Australia, 1900-1945, by Yianni Cartledge
This scholarly monograph examines the little-known Ikarian Greek diaspora, focusing on their emigration, settlement, community building and integration in South Australia between 1900 and 1945.
The Other Kavels: Brandenburg to the Barossa, by John Schubert
With the story of August Fiedler, pioneer of the Barossa wine industry. Through the lives of Pastor August Kavel’s parents, siblings and wives, John Schubert tells a new story of the Prussian Lutherans who emigrated to SA in 1838, established settlements at Klemzig, Hahndorf and Langmeil, founded a Lutheran church in Australia, and impacted the life of the colony.
Published by Friends of the Lutheran Archives, The Other Kavels will be launched by John Angas at Langmeil Church, Tanunda, on Saturday 25 October at 2pm. Meet the author, enjoy Barossa hospitality, and take a tour of the historic church and cemetery. The Other Kavels costs $35 and is available at Lutheran Archives or FoLA events.
To order on-line at $35 + $11.10 post & packaging, email [email protected] (please include your postal address).
Book release: 'I buy this piece of ground here’: An Italian market-gardener community in Adelaide, 1920s - 1970s, by Madeleine Regan
The book is a group biography that examines the lives and work of a group of Italian migrant families from the Veneto region. The group arrived in Australia in the 1920s and formed a new community and identity as market gardeners in outer suburban Adelaide during the 1930s. It considers the impact of the Depression, fascism, World War II, the White Australia environment that excluded southern Europeans, and, finally, the suburbanisation that overtook their community. The book investigates settlement processes in a period of Australian migration history often overlooked in favour of post-World War II studies of mass migration and multiculturalism.
The monograph is adapted from Madeleine’s PhD and makes extensive use of a collection of 65 oral histories recorded over 17 years with the sons and daughters and grandchildren of the first generation of Veneto migrants and others closely connected to the market gardens.
The book is available for purchase or free download thorough ANU Press
The Royal Sappers and Miners in South Australia 1839 to 1860: Its role in the Survey of South Australia, by Anthony Frank Harris and Andrew Peake OAM
In 1839 the newly established Province of South Australia was in disarray, facing bankruptcy, following the resignation of Colonel William Light as Surveyor General. Following his resignation, several of his fellow surveyors also resigned and the survey of South Australia virtually ceased, meaning that land was not available for sale, which would fund the migration scheme to bring colonists to the colony.
The solution was found in arranging for a team of fifteen Royal Sappers and Miners, led by a Royal Engineering officer, to come to South Australia in 1839. They became the back-bone of the Survey Office for the next twenty-one years, and their commanding officer became the Colony’s Surveyor-General.
This publication traces the lives of the forty men of the Royal Sappers and Miners who served in South Australia between 1839 and 1860. Most of these men married and settled in South Australia following their discharge.
Book release: Murder on North Terrace, by Lainie Anderson
In Murder on North Terrace the indomitable Miss Cocks and Ethel Bromley return for Book Two in the bestselling and charmingly cosy Petticoat Police Mystery Series, inspired by one of Australia's first policewomen.
