President Don Garden and the RHSV Volunteers' Christmas Party, 2014

 RHSV President Don Garden and the Volunteers enjoyed a luscious Christmas feast at their Headquarters in A'Beckett.  Don thanked the Staff and Volunteers, and particularly those who worked to make the party a wonderful and friendly event.  He also outlined the latest progress on our efforts to remain at the Drill Hall.  Our most recent approach to the new Minister can be seen in the December Update on our homepage.

The Drill Hall will close at noon on Tuesday 23 December, so there is still time to check out the History Victoria Bookshop in person.  Online orders will not be dispatched until we re-open on Monday 12 January.  Enjoy your celebrations and holiday break, and we will see you back next year!

 

 

Christmas Gifts and Holiday reads at the RHSV

The new History Victoria Online Bookshop was launched during History Week by Maree Coote, a former winner of the Victorian Community History Award in 2012 for her book The Art of Being Melbourne.  A feature of the launch was the large number of the entries in the 2014 awards, available for purchase in our Online catalogue.  You are also welcome to come in and browse the selection on display. 

If you wish to purchase a book online, please do so soon, as we won't be able to guarantee delivery before Christmas if you leave it too late.  If time is short, pop in and buy them over the counter, at 239 A'Beckett St, Melbourne, near Flagstaff Station.

Click here to view our History Victoria Online catalogue.

You can also download a complete list of entries, with descriptions, in the 2014 Victorian Community History Awards.  Not all of these are available for sale - you will need to check the catalogue.

December 2014 History News now available

You can download the most recent issue of History News from the RHSV website.    Please note that the RHSV headquarters will be closed from 23 December 2014 and re-open on 12 January 2015.

Soldier Boys launched at the Drill Hall

With some World War 1 era songs to put us in the mood, Max Waugh's book on Soldier Boys: the militarisation of Australian and New Zealand Schools for World War 1 was launched at the Drill Hall by RHSV President Don Garden on Tuesday 18 November. 

Afterwards the guests adjourned to the Officers' Mess upstairs and enjoyed a panel discussion with Max Waugh, Russell Robinson (author of Khaki Crims and Desperadoes), moderated by Past RHSV President Andrew Lemon. 

Soldier Boys is available at the RHSV bookshop, but Khaki Crims is not at present.

VCHA 2014 Historical Interpretation Award Commendations

The winners in each category of the Victorian Community History Awards 2014 have already been posted to the Royal Historical Society of Victoria website.

 

The following posts list the entries which were Commended by the Judges.

 

Coastal Guide to Nature and History Port Phillip Bay, by Graham Patterson.

Coranderrk: we will show the country, by Giordano Nanni and Andrea James,.

A Way With the Fairies: the lost story of sculptor Ola Cohn. An autobiography, by Barbara Lemon, editor.

Art Behind the Wire: the untold story of refugee families interned in Australia during the Second World War, by Melinda Mockridge.

VCHA 2014 Multimedia History Award Commendations

 

St Paul's Cathedral App

St Paul's Cathedral Melbourne

Ballarat & District Genealogical Society website

www.ballaratgenealogy.org.au

 

Queen Victoria Women's Centre Centenarty Digital Timeline

www.qvwc.org.au/about-us/history/timeline

 

Nepean Historical Society website

http://nepeanhistoricalsociety.asn.au/

 

Special Commendation

Young Historians

(Students from years 3-13)

Recreating Gallipoli (DVD)

Wangaratta West Primary School 3/4C

VCHA 2014 Collaborative Community History Award Commendations

The Church on the Hill: a centenary history of St Brigid's, Crossley, and its Irish-Australian community, by Helen Doyle and others.

Middle Park: from swamp to suburb, by Jackey Tidey, editor.

An Historical Geography of Tourism in Victoria, Australia - case studies, by Ian D Clark, editor.

The Grand Mansions of Essendon and District, 1880-1892, by Mary Cahill, editor.

Acheron: a history of the district, by Elaine Furniss, Andrea Turner and others.

VCHA 2014 - Local History Project Award Commendations

 Thompson's Foundry Castlemaine: Drawing and Archival Collection 1875 -1974, located at the Maldon Village Vintage Machinery Museum.

Ballarat Benevolent Aslum Registers of Inmates 12860 - 1880, by Brett Weinberg.

http://www.ballarathistoricalsociety.com/collection/hospitalRecords/Ballarat%20Benevolent%20Society.htm

The Last Matron of Coranderrk: Natalie Robarts's Diary of the Final Years of Coranderrk Aboriginal Station, 1909-1924, by Ian D Clark.

Remember Our Nurses: the service and sacrifice of Bendigo nurses in World War One, by Murray Poustie.

 

VCHA 2014 - Small Publication Award Commendations

Welcome to Wurundjeri Country: the Wurundjeri history of Yarra, by Emily Fitzgerald and Daniel Ducrou.

 



 Wonderful Warrandyte: a portrait, by Valerie Polley.

 

The Dura (quarterly journal), by Harry Rekas (editor).

 

Black Sheep: Journal of the East Gippsland Family History Group Inc and East Gippland Historical Society Inc.



VCHA 2014 History Publication Award Commendations

 Planning Power:  the uses and abuses of power in the planning of the Latrobe Valley, by David Langmore.

 The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, by Clare Wright.

Sea Baths of Victoria, by Bruce Bennett.

Goulburn River Aboriginal Protectorate: a history of the Goulburn River Aboriginal Protectorate Station at Murchison, Victoria, 1840-1853, by Ian D Clark.

 Finding Home: the Masson family, by R J W Selleck.

 The Audacious Adventures of Dr Louis Lawrence Smith 1830-1910, by John Poynter.

Circus and Stage:  the Theatrical Adventures of Rose Edouin and GBW Lewis, by Mimi Colligan.

The last photos of the Victorian Community History Awards 2014

Robert Kenny, Winner of the History Publication Award for Gardens of Fire: An investigative memoir.

Jennifer Burrell with a Commendation in  the Multimedia History Award for the Ballarat & District Genealogical Society website.

Sonia Cameron left and Jackie Tidey right,  from the Middle Park History Group Commended in the Collaborative Community History category for Middle Park: From Swamp to Suburb.

Daniel Ducrou and Emily Fitzgerald from Yarra City Council Commended in the Small Publication category for Welcome To Wurundjeri Country: The Wurundjeri history of Yarra.

Debbie Squires with the Commendation in the Small Publication category awarded for Black Sheep, a  journal jointly published by the East Gippsland Genealogical Society and the East Gippsland Historical Society in Bairnsdale.

Harry Rekas and Danie Sprague from Large Worldwide with a Commendation in the Small Publication Award for the quarterly journal The Dura.

David and Rosemary Langmore with a Commendation in the History Publication category for Planning Power: the uses and abuses of power in the planning of the Latrobe Valley.

Lorraine Smith representing Lilydale & District Historical Society, Winner of the Multimedia History Award for the website Gun Alley. 

Melinda Mockridge with a Commendation in the Historical Interpretation category for Art Behind the Wire.

For other photos see the Public Records Office Flickr photostream:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/public-record-office-victoria/

Professor Katie Holmes explores the Mallee

Picturing the Victorian Mallee, 1840-1945

Picturing the Victorian Mallee, 1840-1945

Picturing the Victorian Mallee, 1840-1945

Picturing the Victorian Mallee, 1840-1945

RHSV Past President Andrew Lemon with Professor Katie Holmes.

When Europeans first encountered the land we now know as the Mallee, they saw it as desolate, featureless, and hostile to human habitation. Fifty years later they were exultant about the ‘miracle of the Mallee’ as they celebrated its transformation into a vast field of golden grain. The ‘Howling Wilderness’ had become the ‘Promised Land’. But as the Federation Drought took hold, dreams of golden fields gave way to realities of dust, drought and despair. In the inter-war years, as Soldier Settlement Schemes floundered, the struggle for survival became, in the words of the Argus, ‘the story of a warfare, no less exacting, no less fierce, not a whit less decisive, than the war from which most of the settlers have come’.

History Week continued last Tuesday Professor Katie Holmes took the attentive audience through the different ways in which the Victorian  Mallee has been depicted  and imagined – in maps, images and words – and the impact these imaginings had on the settlement history of this region. Several people in attendance had personal stories to tell about the Mallee.

More Winners and Commendations, 2014

Hayley Fleming and Ian D Clark with Ian's THREE Commendations in three different categories - Collaborative Community History; Local History Project; and the History Publication Award.







Dorothea Rowse with a Multimedia Award for The St Paul's Cathedral App.


 

Sandra Pullman  on the left with the Historical Interpretation Award for The Garden at La Trobe's Cottage; RHSV President Don Garden, and Victorian Community History Awards Winner Anne Vale.



Clare Wright with a Commendation in the category History Publication Award for her book The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka.



 

Victorian Community History Awards - more Winners and Commendations

The official photos of the Victorian Community History Awards 2014 are now available on the Public Record Office Victoria Flickr account: https://www.flickr.com/photos/public-record-office-victoria/with/14967079474/  In the meantime, here are more of the unofficial photos:

Marguerita Stephens with Fay Stewart-Muir of the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages, with the winning Local History Project Award for The Journal of William Thomas, Assistant Protector of the Aborigines of Port Phillip & Guardian of the Aborigines of Victoria 1839-1867, 4 volumes.

Alex Bragiola and Mary Cahill of the Essendon Historical Society with a Commendation in the Collaborative Community History Project category for The Grand Mansions of Essendon and District, 1880-1892



 Brett Weinberg who received a Commendation in the Local History Project Award category for Ballarat Benevolent Asylum Registers of Inmates 1860-1880. See http://www.ballarathistoricalsociety.com/collection/hospitalRecords/Ballarat%20Benevolent%20Society.htm
 

Some photos from the Victorian Community History Awards 2014

The Winners gather to have a group photograph taken.  Guest speaker Gideon Haigh is on the left, and RHSV President Don Garden next to him.  Margaret Bowman, the winner of the Local History Small Publication Award is next to Don Garden.

From left to right, guest speaker Gideon Haigh, RHSV President Don Garden, Gerry Robinson who accepted the prize for Collaborative Community History Award, Anne Vale who took the Victorian Community History Award, and Sandra Pullman on behalf of the Friends of La Trobe's Cottage which received the Historical Interpretation Award.