Update 8 July 2016: Janine has added some more about the next day of the Conference, covering papers on the Red Cross during World War I, Australian soldiers in the Boer War, museums, and living and dying. Of particular interest to Honest History was the launch of the book by Kate Auty and Lynette Russell, Hunt Them, Hang Them, on the judicial executions of Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheenner in Melbourne in the 1840s. We have noted this incident before on our site. More about the Auty-Russell book.
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Yesterday we noted the Twitter-based blog of Yvonne Perkins (Stumbling through the Past) on the Australian Historical Association conference at Ballarat, a town which, at this time of the year does as it likes, weather-wise. (A large number of Tweets from Ballarat refer to warmth welcomed or longed-for.)
Begonia Festival Queen, Ballarat, 1966 (NAA A1500, 11647466)
Today, we link to The Resident Judge of Port Phillip, the blog wrangled by Janine Rizzetti. Janine braved Ballarat and has reported on the first and second days of the conference. (Scroll down a bit for day one.) Janine has provided comprehensive comments from her scribbled notes and the abstracts of the conference. Among the papers that took her fancy were these:
- Emily Cock on facial disfigurement (a theme which Honest History has touched on in a war context);
- Yorick Smaal on institutional sexual abuse of boys (Honest History has a review of Yorick’s book on gay servicemen during World War II);
- Mark Dunn, Leonie Stevens and Imogen Wegman on frontier encounters in Tasmania;
- Madonna Grehan, Dot Wickham and Judith Godden on aspects of women’s ‘reproductive role’ in nineteenth century Australia;
- Claire Greer on Subiaco WA during World War I (‘I really liked this fine-grained use of the deluge of data generated by the ANZAC centenary to investigate the homefront rather than the warfront’, says The Resident Judge, to which Honest History can only say a hearty ‘hear, hear!’ and refer readers to our series getting under way ‘Divided sunburnt country: Australia 1916-18’, which asks whether the home front stories were the real stories of the Great War. We are always looking for writers and material for this series. [End of HH commercial]);
- Bryce Abraham on the Surafend massacre of 1918, which was reported in the Official History then brushed aside until revived by Paul Daley, Peter Stanley and others. Not Australia-in-khaki’s finest moment, if understandable at the time, but unlikely to be noted 100 years on by the official commemoration industry;
- Martin Crotty on the 1965 RSL pilgrimage to Gallipoli, apparently botched (the pilgrimage, not the paper). Honest History has a note about one aspect of this episode here;
- Louise Prowse, Andrew May, Lisa Murray and Simon Sleight on aspects of cities and urbanism.
7 July 2016
Ballarat Commonwealth Office, 1966 (NAA B6295, 30128184)
