2025 Hot Histories Conference Program

Sunday, 26 OCTOBER

Speakers and Abstracts

STEPHEN GAPPS: A topic too hot for the Australian War Memorial: The Australian Wars

PHA (NSW & ACT)

Later this year, a major publication based on the award-winning documentary series directed by Rachel Perkins The Australian Wars will hit bookstores. It will be an incoming missile squarely aimed at the Australian War Memorial, our national icon desperately trying to avoid acknowledging the Australian Frontier Wars as part of Australian military history.   

 But along with the publication of The Australian Wars, things might start to get even hotter for the Memorial. This paper will outline initial research into how Australia’s post-1901 military history has connections with the Australian Frontier Wars of the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

 Beyond several emblematic elements such as emu plumes and the ‘Coo-ee’ call, there are other less symbolic threads. Numbers of men who enlisted from the bush, particularly in Queensland, had first-hand experience of frontier warfare. Many others had fathers and relatives who were involved in frontier conflict. This paper suggests there is fertile ground for researching the relationship between the Australian Wars and the First AIF. It will reflect on why the Australian Wars are still too hot to handle for the national place of the commemoration of Australians at war. 

 About Stephen  Gapps

Stephen Gapps is an historian working to bring the Australian Frontier Wars into broader public recognition. He is currently employed as an Historian at Artefact Heritage & Environment, works as a consultant historian and is an Adjunct Lecturer at Charles Sturt University. In 2011 Stephen won a NSW Premier’s History Award for his book Cabrogal to Fairfield. Stephen has since published three Australian Frontier Wars histories, The Sydney Wars, Gudyarra and most recently, Uprising: War in the Colony of NSW 1838-44. He is currently co-editor and contributor to the forthcoming (2025) book of the documentary series The Australian Wars.    

FRANCESCA BEDDIE: After the war: what the Cowra Japanese garden can tell us about peacebuilding

PHA (NSW & ACT)

Eighty years ago, on 24 October 1945, the Charter of the United Nations came into force ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.  While the casualties from contemporary warfare are nowhere near the scale of the two world wars, armed conflict and its consequences are again a dominant element in international relations. The rhetoric of peace has faded. Was the hope of an international order based on peaceful cooperation utopian? Can nations and humans reconcile after having been bitter enemies? A garden in the small country town of Cowra in New South Wales provides some answers.  

This paper analyses the oral history record created under the Australian War Memorial’s Australia–Japan Research Project in 2003/2004. It traces how Cowra became the ‘spiritual home of Australia–Japan relations’ and overcame the bitterness and humiliation caused by war. The centrepiece of that effort is Cowra’s Japanese Garden. One foundation for reconciliation was the interaction between individuals in Australia and Japan, who worked together to realise the garden.  

Speaking about Australian─Japanese relations in 1957, Prime Minister Menzies said it was ‘better to hope than always to remember’. Many decades later though, retelling Cowra’s story may offer some signposts towards peace.  

About Francesca Beddie

Francesca Beddie is a former diplomat and now editor of Australian Garden History as well as co-editor of Circa. She studied history at the ANU and has written on the Russian fin-de-siecle and on history and policy, with a focus on international affairs, health and tertiary education. She has undertaken a community-led oral history on the 2020 bushfires and is working on collating oral histories from the Australian Garden History Society’s collection into podcasts.  

JEFF HOPKINS-WEISE: Northern Australia’s last imperial outpost: Somerset, Cape York, 1864-67

PHA (NSW & ACT)

British expansionism across the vast Australian continent saw a small number of very isolated military outposts established in distant northern and western locales far removed from the core areas of European settlement and domination, including Fort Dundas on Melville Island (1824–29), Fort Wellington in Raffles Bay (1827–29) and then Port Essington (1838-49) on the Coburg Peninsula. A far-flung outpost was established in King George Sound in 1826, in what is today Albany, Western Australia, and another short-lived military garrison was the abortive North Australia Colony (later the site of Gladstone) in 1847. This paper seeks to provide an outline of the final imperial outpost at Somerset, Cape York during 1864-67 – the last imperial military outpost in northern Australia. 

This paper forms part of an ongoing passion project to better document the often-forgotten imperial Army and Royal Navy detachments which served in the Colony of Queensland during the 19th century, for which the Royal Marine detachment at Somerset, Cape York, to date has eluded my attention, despite having carried out a large body of research decades back. The passing of a good friend and historian colleague in 2023 who similarly shared this same historical passion, has re-ignited my purpose. 

About Jeff Hopkins-Weise

Jeff Hopkins-Weise M.Phil, BA(Hons) is senior heritage advisor/historian for Navin Officer Heritage Consultants in Canberra ACT and is a long-term member of the Professional Historians Australia, the current Vice President of this national body, as well as Deputy Chair of PHA NSW & ACT. He has many years of history and heritage experience including heritage assessment and management, museums curatorial and collection management, with local councils, state, and Commonwealth government departments. Jeff also has an especial interest in the British Army and Royal Navy in Australia and New Zealand, memorials and memorialisation, and the colonial trans-Tasman world. 

HANNAH VINEY: Historian or nosy creep? The ethics of digging into ASIO files and divorce papers

PHA (Vic & Tas)

One of the greatest archival finds of my career was a literal ‘Dear John’ letter hidden in divorce case proceedings from 1940. In this letter, Louise laid into her soon-to-be-ex-husband John about his failed business dealings and debt, scathingly remarking “you can keep the wedding ring to remind you of how much you have let me down.” As a historian, this letter is gold. It gives a clear voice to Louise and demonstrates perfectly her own agency. Yet this was a letter that was never intended to be read by someone other than John. The inclusion of this letter in the divorce proceedings was, in itself, likely exposing enough. In 1940, no one involved could have predicted this letter would be freely available online to anyone in the world in 80 years. The same can be said of the phone conversations and other personal details included in ASIO files. An individual may choose to donate their diary to an archive later in life, but the diary that ASIO agent secretly photographed and is now available online may be a different story This paper asks: how do we, as historians, navigate these ethical dilemmas in a respectful way while still telling the histories we want to tell?  

 About Hannah Viney

I am a history consultant and museum professional with over ten years’ experience bringing history to life. I specialise in Australian social and cultural history, with a particular interest in the intersections between twentieth century politics and gender history. I am passionate about ensuring history is accessible to everyone. I believe it is important that people from different backgrounds and life experiences can find themselves in history. My recent work has been used by the National Trust of Australia, the Old Melbourne Gaol, the Australian War Memorial and the Old Treasury Building Museum. 

JANE MILLS HARDING: Love triangle: romance and passion are alive in the archives

PHA (Qld)

Historians love, and rely on, archives for much of their work and archival collections pulse with the echoes of human connection. Love stories are readily revealed in carefully preserved diaries and bundles of old letters. But there are also love stories to be found in less conspicuous collections. Historic collections can also facilitate the rekindling of lost connections in unanticipated ways. 

Through brief, practise-based case studies, this presentation will demonstrate the surprising ways love can manifest in the archives. From 100 year old romance revealed in unlikely bureaucratic files to the reuniting of adolescent sweethearts, the many ways love is alive and thriving in the archives will be demonstrated. It will reiterate the importance of exploring every source and shine a spotlight on the vital role of archivists and librarians in this process. 

The uncovering of these hidden narratives of affection is dependent upon a three-way relationship between the collection materials (and their original creators), the historians who seek them out, and, crucially, the stewards of the archival collections whose love and passion ensures they are preserved and accessible – an ideal love triangle. 

About Jane Mills Harding

Jane Mills Harding is a professional historian focusing on local, community and public history. She has over 20 years’ experience in local government providing local history and heritage services. She has coordinated a wide range of historical interpretive projects including short films, books, heritage walks, and exhibitions. She has qualifications in history, information science and communications. 

Jane has been recognised professionally as a GAMAA Finalist for Individual Achievement and a joint winner of a National Trust of Australia (Queensland) Silver Award and is a member of PHA (Qld). She currently works as a freelance historian and heritage consultant.

PAULINE HASTINGS: The Barbie Doll’s Australian Legacy: Cultivating youth fashion consumption through children’s play and marketing in 1960s Australia

PHA (Vic & Tas)

Mattel’s Barbie doll entered the Australian children’s toy market in 1964, a time when the teenage fashion market was on the brink of unprecedented expansion. The disposable incomes of Australia’s large cohort of employed youth ensured a burgeoning economy in fashion, as well as fun and leisure. Dubbed “The Teenage Fashion Model Doll,” young children embraced Barbie, her clothes and accessories and their play mirrored youth’s lived experience through consumption. This paper links the Australian cultural and economic history of the Barbie doll and argues that the doll’s image departed from traditional ideas of motherhood and postwar femininity, instead symbolising consumption culture. Barbie’s marketing exposed the very young to new ideas on individual style, fun and career aspirations through dress. Through play, Barbie dolls primed their pre-teen owners in fashion consciousness, the embrace of obsolescence and the desire to consume. 

About Pauline Hastings

Pauline Hastings is an independent scholar and Professional Historian with research interests in manufacturing, marketing and consuming goods and services in Australia’s postwar period. Her work utilises a multidimensional approach that connects social, cultural and economic histories and endows stories of business with a human vibrancy. Her recent PhD thesis (Monash University, 2024) explored the golden age of Australian mass market clothing manufacturing and its subsequent decline in the final decades of the twentieth century through the lived experiences of the industry’s workers, business owners and others connected through cloth and clothing.

SINEAD BURT: Is it Fashion? Collecting Clothing in Australian Institutions

PHA (Qld)

Does the categorisation of the clothing that we collect matter. What if we call it “costume” or “clothing” or “fashion” or “dress”? And what about gender - why is it one of the only departments in the museum or gallery in which women are more highly represented than men? 

Through my own museum practice, I observed that clothing can be interpreted differently, depending on the collecting institution. Art Galleries interpret clothing through an art historical focus, while social history institutions view garments as historical sources. This observation led me to question the influence of the academic discipline of the institution on the categorisation and interpretation of dress. 

As part of my PhD, I have recently conducted a study of clothing collections held in Australian collecting institutions to find out about the influence of categorisation on collecting practices, and how this influences the ways in which knowledge is produced. I am especially interested in the ways in which concepts of gender are constructed and represented. 

My research is hot of the press! I have investigated art galleries, museums, historical societies and National Trusts, incorporating surveys, interviews and object biographies to obtain new data. Through examining the interplay between disciplines and gender, my aim is to broaden the way that we interpret clothing within museum practice, through a reassessment of existing collections.  

About Sinead Burt

Sinead Burt holds her BA (Hons) from The University of Western Australia, and an MA at The University of Queensland. She is a doctoral student, supported by the Deakin University Research Training Program Scholarship. As an historian who specialises in clothing, Sinead Burt is interested in the intersections between the acquisition and interpretation of clothing in collecting institutions.

DEB LEE-TALBOT, ROLAND LEIKAUF & SARAH CRAZE: Hot Histories: Curiosity, Controversy, and the Role of AI in Historical Practice

Dr Deborah Lee-Talbot (PHA Vic & Tas) suggests historians are ideally placed to engage with the AI as their expertise in source criticism, contextual analysis, and understanding of historical bias is essential for developing AI systems that can accurately interpret and digitise historical documents without perpetuating or amplifying existing archival inequities. The potential for AI to dramatically improve OCR output on historical texts—from sketch maps to faded newspapers—could revolutionise historical research by making previously inaccessible or poorly digitised sources searchable at unprecedented scales.

Dr Roland Leikauf (PHA NSW & ACT) postulates that in an age of expanding AI offerings, GLAM is caught between two extremes. Institutions that are underfunded and understaffed welcome tools that help them to streamline and automate processes, even though the price for this help is often cutting the human touch out of many different areas.

What historians and cultural workers really want from AI is strong support for their creative endeavours: opportunities to interact with their responsibilities in new ways, better approaches for dealing with data, information and sources.  But once creativity is actually funded, projects are often outsourced to external companies and experts that lack the direct relationship to the processes of professional history.

Will the qualities of the histories we write suffer while we are caught between these extremes? Who is in control of this rapid process of adaption, and why is change management often so seriously lacking?

 Dr Sarah Craze (PHA Vic & Tas) suggests that what we publish online and produce on social media is an opportunity for us to feed these developing AI systems with accurate historical information. AI and social media are now heavily entwined; but they change almost constantly. Established platforms like Facebook and Instagram are in decline while TikTok is on the ascension. TikTok is no longer the domain of weird dance videos and strange food trends, nor is it just for teenagers. Instead it is increasingly a source of information for all  demographics as it positions itself to replace Google as a search engine. If we are not engaging in these new spaces to give context and accuracy to history, then AI will be fed with dubious and inaccurate historical sources.

About the speakers

Deborah Lee-Talbot is an Australian historian and consultant based in Melbourne, specialising in Pacific histories, gender studies, and archival research. In 2023, Dr. Lee-Talbot served as the CH Currey Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales, where she researched Phyllis Mander-Jones' role in preserving Australian-Pacific records. In 2025, she is collaborating on a project titled "History, Archives, and Ethics (HAE)," which explores the ethical challenges of using historical data in AI models. 

Roland Leikauf is a historian and curator specialising in migration and post-war immigration. Since 2021, he has served as the Curator of Post-war Immigration at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Sydney. In this role, he oversees the museum's migration-related collections and exhibitions. In 2024, Dr. Leikauf's essay "The impact of AI tools on the historical profession" won the Best Essay award in Circa: The Journal of Professional Historians. The judges praised his accessible and meaningful discussion on the challenges and potential of AI in historical research and writing. 

Dr Sarah Craze completed her PhD in 2019 and is the author of Atlantic Piracy in the early 19th Century: the shocking story of the pirates and survivors of the Morning Star. During the Covid era she turned her attention to local history and in 2024 self-published Ashburton Stories: A History of the Melbourne Suburb. She runs Life Stories writing workshops, continues to undertake local history research projects, and is the projects officer at PHA (Vic & Tas). 

RICHARD GILLESPIE: Photogrammetry and Rock Art

PHA (Vic & Tas)

In the 1970s and 1980s surveyors in the Department of Surveying at the University of Melbourne commenced a project to apply photogrammetric techniques to the recording of rock art sites around Australia. A highly technical and mathematical discipline, the surveyors used specially designed and calibrated cameras holding large-format glass plates or film. Stereopairs could then be analysed to enable stereo viewing and plotting in the 3D model. The university was awarded a grant by the Australian Heritage Commission to undertake trial projects in Cape York, while the National Parks and Wildlife Service funded the recording of rock art sites in Kakadu. 

 Hundreds of glass plates and large format film have survived and are now part of the university’s cultural collections. These images are an important archive. Rock art is subject to constant deterioration – and sometimes major destruction.  

In 2023 the Indigenous Knowledges Institute and the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology funded a project to initiate discussions with Traditional Owners around Australia and to digitise more than 700 photographs of rock art sites. Spatial information researchers can create 3D images and video of the surfaces from the stereopair images, revealing in detail the condition of the artwork forty years ago. We are now exploring with Traditional Owners and rock art researchers the ways to use these images to assist in cultural maintenance, conservation, research and education. 

About Richard Gillespie

Richard Gillespie is senior curator of the Engineering and Information Technology Collection at the University of Melbourne. He was previously head of the Humanities Department at Museums Victoria. He has led the development of over thirty exhibitions and associated public programs. He has published widely on the history of science and technology and the history of museum collections. 

KIMBERLEY MEAGHER: In the pursuit of connection: finding outback jackaroos by rail

PHA (Vic & Tas)

In 2017, Cloncurry celebrated its 150th anniversary and the 110th anniversary of the railway line opening, with a historic steam train journeying from Townsville to Cloncurry over four days. This lightning paper charts the journey in search of a former pastoral station along the historic railway line where only a Google pin marks the remnant railway siding. Using the commemorative steam train into the QLD outback to delve into a personal family archive reveals not only the life on an outback pastoral station in 1929, but unexpected and simultaneous connections to this place across Australia, both in the past and the present. 

About Kimberley Meagher

Kimberley Meagher is a professional historian and senior project officer at Creative Victoria. She has spent the past sixteen years in the public service working in archives, heritage and creative sectors, with five years working for heritage consultancies and freelancing in history. A member of PHA (Vic & Tas) since 2009, Kimberley has contributed six years in Committee of Management positions of President, Vice President and Events Coordinator. Kimberley blends professional interests in creative and digital infrastructure with personal interests in people, places, and travel. She writes and publishes her research at www.whatwillbe.blog  

SONIA JENNINGS AND MIRANDA FRANCIS: Claiming the Flames: a community running hot on owning ‘their’ fire

PHA (Vic & Tas)

Living Histories partners Sonia Jennings, Jill Barnard, and Miranda Francis are writing a history of Truganina, a small rural community on the outskirts of Melbourne. The period covered spans from the 1930s to 2015 and is defined by a major fire in 1969.  Although other areas in Victoria also suffered, participants recounting their memories of Truganina have shown a fierce determination to 'own' their fire, resisting association with neighbouring areas. Comments to date on our work have included:  

• Too much emphasis on Lara Fire including the inquest

• Too much on the Lara fires, which got extensive newspaper coverage because of the dreadful fatalities 

• Truganina fire was totally separate to the Lara one 

Despite the tragic fatalities of the Lara fires, Truganina's community was determined to tell the unique story of their fire. More than half a century later, these recollections and emotions show how such events shape memory and continue to influence how the past is remembered and retold.  This presentation will explore how this sense of ownership has shaped the structure and tone of the commissioned history, highlighting its relevance to broader narratives about the impact of fire on small communities. 

About Sonia Jennings

Sonia Jennings is a professional historian and partner of Living Histories. She has authored and co-authored publications for medical and nursing groups, an aviation union, a timber and hardware company and a major financial institution. Other work has included local histories focussing on sport and artistic culture, heritage studies, site reports and oral histories for diverse places and projects. Sonia is currently working on a commissioned history for a community on the western fringes of Melbourne. 

About Miranda Francis

Dr Miranda Francis is a professional historian and partner of Living Histories. She specialises in the history of motherhood and family, with an emphasis on oral history. She is a member of the National Library of Australia’s COVID-19 oral history interviewing team, serves as the Digital Curator/Historian for RMIT University Archives and is an Adjunct Research Fellow at La Trobe University. Her current work focuses on the history of post-secondary education in Victoria and the social history of Melbourne's western suburbs.

CLAIRE SANDELL: Working with passionate supporters in politically hot conditions: A Lightening Talk about a Public Historian’s positive experiences with community collections

PHA (Vic & Tas)

Working with passionate supporters in politically hot conditions: A Lightening Talk about a Public Historian’s positive experiences with community collections. 

My lightning talk will be about my experiences as a public historian advocating for the protection and communication of community collections, particularly in the context of politically ‘hot’ contemporary environments.  These include local government and the private sector.   

Working with an archive collection solo can be a little isolating and it is easy for your organisation to forget about you.  I have found the support of the volunteers who passionately defend these collections, to be an invaluable factor in navigating this challenge.  I learnt early to never underestimate the value of these often-unassuming collections, and their custodians.   

I want to talk about how struggles have been overcome and share the positive outcomes.  I will provide a quick tour of a platform that has been developed through support from both my current school and the alumni, to provide public access to key areas of the collection.  There will be discussion about the impact of this tool on the ordinary business of the archives.  Also, an overview of new projects designed to protect and communicate the rich history of this 150-year-old collection.   

About Claire Sandell

I am a public historian, currently working in the field of school archives at a Melbourne Girls’ School.  My work has brought me into contact with many varied community collections, local government collections, libraries and more recently school archives.  I always find that the detective work is the best bit, finding clues to help understand the connections that ultimately make it possible to tell interesting stories.  Finding the women’s voices is a key motivator for me, and most importantly, not to be put off by being asked to sort out a mess!   

ALLISON SULLIVAN: Rabbit Holes

PHA (NSW & ACT)

I think all historians have moments when we wish we could be two people! 

 Professionalism stops you jumping down every rabbit hole and experience teaches you that most are dead ends, but what happens when you take the leap? 

 As a historian it's so easy to get side-tracked: we pursue information for a specific purpose, and are frequently forced to cast aside items that threaten to pull us away from the job at hand. The realities of time constraints, budgets and life naturally get in the way of pursuing everything we find interesting. 

 Sometimes, though, these tidbits niggle away at me, and I find it hard to leave them untested. I started my blog as a way of exorcising these stories, and my business identity grew from this obsession with rabbit holes. This paper is a light-hearted exploration of some of the obscure, weird and wonderful stories I’ve delved into over the years, such as: the Victorian gentleman of note who somehow ‘married’ two sisters; the adulterous woman who eloped to a cave with a confidence trickster; the mummy’s boy and his long-suffering spouse; and an extraordinary gift to a King from a Sydney craftswoman. 

About Allison Sullivan

Allison O’Sullivan is a historian and GLAM sector professional. She holds a PhD (UNSW) and has worked as a university tutor and lecturer; museum guide; museum and heritage sector public engagement programmer; and social history curator and researcher since the early 2000s. In 2022 she was awarded an honorary fellowship with the State Library of Queensland on diaries of colonial women migrants. Allison has created exhibitions and published on the history of women, convicts, veterans, and the working poor. She most enjoys writing in public history for a general readership. Allison is currently a freelance researcher, transcriber, writer, and consultant. 

LIBBY BLAMEY: The larrikin pushes (or gangs) of the late nineteenth century

PHA (Vic & Tas)

Drawing on two recent thematic histories produced for City of Melbourne heritage reviews of Carlton and North Melbourne, this paper will explore the larrikin pushes (or gangs) of the late nineteenth century. After the 1880sbuilding boom, the economic crash of the 1890s had a significant impact on the working-class inner north suburbs of Melbourne, with many of the population employed in building trades. Through this period, groups of disenfranchised and unemployed men formed 'pushes', and reports of petty crime and violent assaults in the inner suburbs shocked and fascinated middle-class Melbourne for decades. What was it about the pushes that left so many readers hot under the collar? How does the history of these gangs, and reports thereof, inform a sense of place and identity? And how can this be applied to a modern understanding of a place in a heritage context?

About Libby Blamey

Libby Blamey, senior historian at Melbourne-based heritage consultancy, Lovell Chen, brings a background in social history to her work. She has considerable experience in relation to the built heritage of Victoria, in particular the inner suburbs of Melbourne. Libby’s interests include the study of places connected with popular culture and social change, and in twentieth century history and politics.

CHRISTEEN SCHOEPF: Defiant of tempest, fire, or wreck: the biographies of two ships and their incarnations as significant chairs. The notion of Object Biography as a tool for broader historical enquiry

On a hot January evening in 1888, the Prussian barque Saturn was set alight while anchored near Port Pirie South Australia, by a kerosene lantern that had fallen in the galley. The fire raged for days until all that remained were some oak timbers of the ship’s carcass. As this phase of Saturn’s life course came to an end, a new life and entity emerged as the timbers were bought at auction by Prussian immigrant and local merchant, Theodor Kneese, who later created the Mayoral Chair for the infant Port Pirie Corporation. 

Forty-eight years earlier, HMS Buffalo, the ‘Mayflower’ of South Australia, went aground in Mercury Bay New Zealand after a violent storm. Efforts to break her up were unsuccessful and she was set fire to but would not succumb. Five decades later, pieces of the ship were crafted into the Mayoral Chair of Glenelg as locals sought material connections to their history. 

This paper will explore how the notion of object biography can add new dimensions, meanings and connections to the changing layers of the stories of both ships as each moved through the phases of their life course -from creation, use, discard, death and reincarnation.  

About Christeen Schoepf

Christeen Schoepf is a SA regionally based independent Historical Archaeologist experienced in a multitude of cross disciplinary methodologies. Her expertise is in the field of Object Biography where history, genealogy, biography, and oral history are used to reveal the contexts and stories of objects, buildings, and other heritage items. She also facilitates best practice oral history, storytelling and community history, and genealogy workshops and consults on local history projects. She is President of Oral History Australia SA/NT and in 2024, was awarded the History Council of SA ‘Excellence in Oral History” award for her contribution to oral history in SA. 

SHAUNA HICKS: No home and starving: the plight of homeless women in colonial Queensland 1850-1900

PHA (Qld)

Women who were widowed or deserted by their husbands were particularly at risk of becoming homeless. If they could not find employment and there were no other family members, they often found themselves living on the streets. Police arrested them under the Vagrancy Act, and they were sent to gaol, often with hard labour. If the women had young children, they were sent to reformatories or orphanages.  Punishment of the poor and homeless seems harsh but many of colonial Queensland’s vagrant women preferred to be in gaol with meals and a roof over their heads. Even with hard labour. It was much safer than sleeping in the bush or roughing it on the streets. 

Male attitudes to elderly women at that time reveal that physical appearance was important. Vagrant women were often described in a derogatory way and as if it was their own fault that they had nowhere to go.  Younger women were also arrested as vagrants on the grounds that they had no gainful employment and no fixed abode. This was often a clue to prostitution which was the only way these young women could earn money to survive.  

No home and starving – sadly a common theme in colonial Queensland.  

About Shauna Hicks

Shauna Hicks OAM worked for over 35 years in Australian archives in Brisbane, Canberra, and Melbourne.  

 Shauna holds a Master of Arts in Australian Studies, and she is a Doctor of Philosophy candidate at Griffith University exploring The Incarceration of Women in Colonial Queensland, 1850-1900. 

 Shauna is a Fellow of the Queensland Family History Society; Patron of History Queensland, and a recipient of the Australian Society of Archivists Distinguished Achievement Award and the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations’ Services to Family History Award. In June 2024 Shauna was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to community history. 

MARGARET COOK: Bringing History into Policy: Working with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority

PHA (Qld)

For two years I have been part of an oral history project with La Trobe University for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. We have interviewed over 70 people around the Basin to record life histories with the intent of informing an update to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The project has thrown up challenges for historians working with a large bureaucracy more used to dealing with scientists, fish numbers, and volumetric water flow measurements than historical narratives of lived experiences. The project has highlighted the potential for historians and a government agency to work collaboratively to bring history into policy making. It has also demonstrated different ways that historians can use our training and expertise in varied formats to create public facing histories. 

About Margaret Cook

Dr Margaret Cook is a public and academic historian and long-term member of PHA (Qld). She currently specialises in histories of water, place and climate with a recent focus on the Murray-Darling Basin. She is the author of the book “A River with a City Problem: A History of Brisbane Floods”. Her paper will look at the hot topic of Murray-Darling Basin water reforms. 

ALICIA CERRETO, MARY SHEEHAN & DOT WICKHAM: In the heat of the moment: Navigating client dilemmas in the practice of professional history

PHA (Vic & Tas)

What are the pressures, pitfalls, and challenges when working as a professional historian? Join three experienced colleagues in a candid conversation as they reflect on their careers, sharing stories of difficult decisions, creative problem-solving, and the art of managing client expectations. 

From handling sensitive situations to balancing our professional obligations with our clients' needs, this session will explore practical strategies for navigating these complex moments.  

We also will invite the audience to share their own problems and solutions, fostering a collaborative discussion on how to approach and resolve the dilemmas we all face in this unique field. 

About the speakers

Alicia Cerreto is a professional historian who is passionate about supporting communities to explore and share stories of their past. A graduate of the Master of Public History at Monash University, Alicia has experience curating exhibitions, conducting oral histories and researching and writing commemorative publications, both digital and in print. Alicia regularly works with people of all ages through talks and workshops where she shares her love of history and demonstrates her commitment to education. 

Mary Sheehan is a graduate of the Monash MA in Public History and member of the Living Histories team. She has worked in the government sector and as a heritage consultant, undertaken oral history projects, and commissioned histories on subjects including local history, nursing and an industrial union (with Sonia Jennings), business education and the legal profession. Her current research focus is the public health provision during the 1919 Spanish flu pandemic in Melbourne, at the University of Melbourne.  

Dorothy Wickham is a director and co-founder of Ballarat Heritage Services. She has been closely connected with archives, genealogy, and historical interpretation for over 30 years. She is passionate about innovation, digitisation, exploring new approaches, and making history widely available to a broader audience. Dorothy has overseen many diverse projects and collaborative efforts, including consultancies with local councils, historical groups, and educational research projects. Her current research is in two different areas: prostitution on the Victorian goldfields; and the voyage and passengers of the Artemisia the first government assisted free immigrants direct from London arriving in Brisbane in mid-December 1848.