HISTORY NEWS ISSUE.346 FEBRUARY 2020 INSIDE THIS ISSUE President’s report History Victoria Support Group Weston Bate oration report Victorian Community History Talented and energetic: Ashley Awards Smith Holsworth Local Heritage Grants Windows on History Awards of Merit Castlemaine pioneers What’s on Smokers’ Nights History Month Book Fair If trees talked Books received Heritage report Around the societies A Hall of Fame Windows on History The John Stanton Bell Window President’s RHSV NEWS RHSV Report This past summer has been a terrible Pankjaj Sirwani, who had replaced Amy face-to-face contact in 2019 with more one for all Australians, but especially Clay, while she was on maternity leave than one-hundred and fifty affiliated those in the line of fi re. Our great thanks in 2019. Amy has now decided not to societies and assisted more through forever to the tireless fi refi ghters and return, so we will soon be searching for phone and email contact. I recently their supportive families. Our members a replacement. Other farewell news is met members of some Mallee societies and member societies may have been that two councillors have stepped down at the launch at Ouyen of a book three directly aff ected and our best wishes go due to health concerns, Alleyne Hockley colleagues and I wrote, Mallee Country. to them. Chips Sowerwine has written in and Jim Dixon. We are saddened by the There, I was made more aware of the this issue about the heritage implications loss of RHSV members John Murphy of challenges of maintaining their important of these confl agrations. Leongatha HS, fi fty-six year membership, collections, and of succession planning in However, for the RHSV the year 2019 and former Victorian premier John Cain, remote historical societies, exacerbated was positive. Our financial position sixteen year membership. by declining rural town populations. ended strongly due to an increase In 2020 we aim to reaffi rm one of our Our work connecting to local societies in income, notably book and ticket strengths, our work for member societies. remains a vital part of our mission. sales and donations, and a decrease in I have recently written to the presidents Richard Broome expenditure due to careful management. and members of our 330 affiliates, The fi nal fi gures will reveal not a defi cit reiterating how the RHSV assists with for our operating budget as in 2018, their many challenges and our new but a modest surplus in operating costs initiatives to assist them. We aim to create for 2019. Our reserves and moneys set a scheme to allow most societies without aside for future use continue to remain DGR tax status to funnel donations very strong. These pleasing results are a for projects or equipment through the tribute to our Executive Offi cer, Rosemary RHSV. We aim to make grants to regional Cameron, our Treasurer Daniel Clements networks of historical societies, and to and the Executive & Finance Committee. hold a regional conference that will feed Our membership has grown somewhat, into a special rural issue of the VHJ. The our current level of activity is more vibrant RHSV is keen to reintroduce excursions with a new initiative among schools, to historical societies in 2020, a tradition and the spirit of our many volunteers is dating back fi fty years, which has lapsed remarkable. We celebrated a new batch in the past decade. This will allow local of more than fi fty members in 2019 and societies to display their treasures to Australia Emeritus Professor John Poynter’s 90th RHSV members. birthday. Our new book Melbourne’s I hope to visit societies in the city Twenty Decades is soon to break even and country as time permits, although Day 2020 within two months of publication and with three-hundred and thirty member we welcome its strong financial and societies it is a daunting task. The RHSV Honours List reputational contribution to the RHSV. together with our History Victoria Support Group has in one way or another had We farewelled our administrative offi cer We were thrilled to see, in this year’s Australia Day Honours, that six of our own were awarded Orders of Australia. We congratulate: History News • Our President, Emeritus History News is the bi-monthly newsletter of the RHSV ROYAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF VICTORIA INC. Professor Richard Broome AM • Our Hon Secretary, Carole EDITOREDITOR SharonSharon BetridgeBetridge [email protected]@outlook.com PRESIDENT Richard Broome DESIGN & ARTWORKARTWORK CentreforceCentreforce PtyPty Ltd 5975 8600 EXECUTIVE OFFICER Rosemary Cameron Woods OAM MARKETING CO-ORDINATORCO-ORDINATOR Jessica Scott ADMINISTRATION OFFICER PRINTED BYY First Class Mailing 9555 9997 Appointment pending • Our Victorian Historical Journal Items for publication should be sent to the Editor COLLECTIONS MANAGER & VOLUNTEER co-editor, Dr Judy Smart AM EMAIL [email protected]@outlook.com COORDINATOR Jillian HiscockHistory House HistoryHistory News CopyCopy closes 16th: March, May,May, July,July, September,September, • A member of our Foundation November and January unless in consultation with the editor, SharonSharon committee, Emeritus Professor Betridge. RHSVRHSV welcomes submission ofof articles forfor inclusion in HistoryHistory 239 A’Beckett Street Melbourne 3000 News. Publication and editingediting will be at the discretion ofof the editor and Offi ce & Library Hours: Monday to Friday John Fitzgerald AM thethe Publications CommitteeCommittee as directed by our Terms of Reference. 9am to 5pm COVERCOVER WindowsWindows on History: The ‘‘JohnJohn StantonStanton Bell Window’,Window’, Phone: 9326 9288 • Our next exhibition’s curator, GardenvaleGardenvale St Stephens AnglicanAnglican Church,Church, ‘Army‘Army in OurOur ReRegion’,gion’, Website: www.historyvictoria.org.au Noel Jackling OAM M. Napier Waller 19511951 Email: offi [email protected] SeeSee page 8 ABN 36 520 675 471 Photo: SusanSusan KellettKellett Registration No. A2529 • RHSV member, Peter Williams PRINT POST APPROVED PP336663/00011 ISSN 1326-2691326-269 OAM 2 RHSV NEWS FEBRUARY 2020 Attendance at any and all RHSV events should be booked through our website: NEWS RHSV What’s www.historyvictoria.org.au/rhsv-events/ All events are held at RHSV, 239 A’Beckett St, Melbourne VIC 3000, unless otherwise stated. On Queries: offi [email protected] or (03) 9326 9288 EXHIBITION: THE SWAMP VANISHES one ships containing nearly 5000 bounty workshops (three Saturdays over three months) January to July 2020 migrants to the new settlement. A major which cover cataloguing and digitisation. This Curator: Lenore Frost shipowner of London, Marshall instigated series of workshops is progressive, starting reform of Lloyd’s Register of Shipping and with basic concepts and building in complexity. Before European settlers arrived in the Port established Britain’s first emigration depot Phillip district, a large wetland that lay between We have spaced the workshops so that at Plymouth, but today his contributions to the Yarra River and the Moonee Ponds Creek participants have time in which to put into the ship-owning and merchant worlds of the sustained the indigenous people and the practice their new skills before the next nineteenth century have been largely forgotten. cultural traditions of the Kulin nation. It was workshop. Participants need to bring their known by the new settlers as Batman’s Swamp, own lap-top. later West Melbourne Swamp. In less than LECTURE: WOMEN’S Some participants will want to book for the full 20 years that important wetland had been HISTORY MONTH series of 6 workshops and others will want to despoiled by European settlers, who turned LECTURE choose those individual workshops that are it into a receptacle for sewerage and rubbish. Tue 17 March 2020 most suitable for them. So, although the series By the end of the nineteenth century signifi cant Professor Lynette Russell is designed as a cohesive whole, the individual engineering works had changed the very shape 5:15pm drinks, launch and workshops also work as stand-alone training of the land. lecture at 6pm sessions. A feature of the land which had sustained $10 / $20 Aboriginal people for millennia prior to Lynette Russell AM is a SEMINAR: STARTING FAMILY HISTORY European settlement in 1835 became a Professor at the Monash Indigenous Studies 24 February 2020 refuge for the down-and-out during the 1930s Centre at Monash University. Professor Russell’s depression. ‘Reclamation’ works continued, focus is on developing an anthropological Presenters: Jenny Redman (current President) until the wetland is now represented by the approach to the story of the past. Her historical and David Down (immediate Past President) Dynon Road Tidal Canal, parallel to Dynon interests are far ranging - across the eighteenth 1:30–3pm Road, and a small Wildlife Reserve. to the twentieth centuries, from Aboriginal Genealogical Society Victoria, level 6, people in the maritime industry, to museums This exhibition traces how a signifi cant wetland 85 Queen Street, Melbourne vanished from sight. and museum collections, to the history of anthropology itself. $5 For her research achievements, Professor The Genealogical Society of Victoria off ers BOOK LAUNCH AND Russell has held the positions of President RHSV members and friends an introduction to LECTURE: JOHN and Vice President of the Australian Historical the resources and skills needed to immerse MARSHALL AND Association and was elected Fellow to the Royal yourself in family history. BOUNTY MIGRATION Historical Society in 2012 and Fellow to the For anyone contemplating researching their TO PORT PHILLIP Academy of Social Sciences of Australia in 2013. family this event is key. It is also of great interest Tuesday 18 February 2020 for those undertaking more general research 5:15pm drinks, launch and GIPPSLAND as family research skills and resources can be lecture at 6pm WORKSHOPS: used to create histories for any characters, not just your family. As we all know family research Free event SOPHIE SHILLING ON CATALOGUING AND is more than births, deaths and marriages and Emeritus Professor Graeme Davison AO, Chair DIGITISATION good research skills and resources are needed of the ‘History Council of Victoria’, will launch Dr to put fl esh on bones.