The previous name of this union was the Victorian Agricultural Implement and Machine Makers Society dating back to around 1885. The union was registered in 1908 and in 1913 changed its name to the Federated Implement Machinery and Ironworkers' Association of Australia. It reverted back to its original name in 1924 and operated until 1941 when it merged with the Federated Stovemakers & Porcelain Enamellers Association of Australia to form the Federated Agricultural Implement & Stovemakers Porcelain Enamellers & Ironworkers Association of Australia.

The Federation was established in 1979 as the peak national body for organisations representing Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to advocate to government, business and the broader community. It is concerned with issues of social welfare and justice, health services, immigration, citizenship, racism, and youth and women's issues.

The Australian Hire Purchase Conference was established in 1958, changing its name to the Australian Hire Purchase and Finance Conference and then to the Australian Finance Conference in 1965 when it incorporated in New South Wales as a non-profit company, limited by guarantee. The AFC represents the interests and views of its member finance companies to government, conducts research on financial, economic, legal, industrial and other matters affecting the membership, issues regular AFC Notices on current market, legal or legislative developments, and maintains a nationwide education program to encourage a greater awareness of money management.

The Confederation of Australian Industry was formed on 1 December 1977 following an amalgamation of the Associated Chambers of Manufactures of Australia and the Australian Council of Employers' Federations. On 31 August 1992 the Confederation merged with the Australian Chamber of Commerce to create the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Formed in 1910 and registered just a year later, the Fire Brigade Employees' Union of New South Wales was the first known trade union of firefighters in the world. By 1922 it had changed names to the Fire Brigades Association of New South Wales, but officers remained excluded. In 1948, the officers' and firefighters' associations formally amalgamated and were registered under the title of the New South Wales Fire Brigade Employees' Union. Officers joined firefighters on strike for the first time, over pay. Just a year later, in 1949, a splinter group of senior officers formed an independent Senior Officers' Association. By 1975, the Senior Officers' Association and the FBEU formally amalgamated. From 1990, the NSW Fire Brigade Employees' Union identified as the NSW Branch of the United Firefighters Union of Australia.

The New South Wales Fire Brigade Officers' Association was a separate organisation from the Fire Brigades Association of New South Wales representing a distinction between officers and firefighters. Its earliest minutes of meetings date from 1925. In 1948 it amalgamated with the Fire Brigades Association of New South Wales to form the New South Wales Fire Brigade Employees' Union. Officers joined firefighters on strike for the first time, over pay. Just a year later, in 1949, a splinter group of senior officers formed an independent Senior Officers' Association. By 1975, the Senior Officers' Association and the FBEU formally amalgamated.

The Australian Letter Carriers' Association was registered in Victoria under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act on 25 September 1912. The Association was an amalgamation of several unions, most notably, the Victorian Letter Carriers' Association which had been operating prior to Federation. By 1924 the Association became known as the Commonwealth Public Service Fourth Division Employees' Union of Australia and a year later amalgamated with the Australian Postal Linesmen's Union and the Postal Sorters' Union of Australia to form the Amalgamated Postal Linesmen Sorters' and Letter Carriers' Union of Australia which changed its name in 1926 to the Amalgamated Postal Workers' Union of Australia.

The Australian Telegraph and Telephone Construction and Maintenance Union was a federation of five State associations formed in 1901 and was registered in Sydney in 1912. It was renamed the Australian Postal Linesmen's Union in 1919.

The Letterpress Printers', Machinists' and Stereotypers' Association of South Australia was formed in September 1907. In October 1910 it became a section of the South Australian Typographical Society following amendment of the rules of membership of the Typographical Society.

The Tasmanian Teachers' Federation was formed in 1905. In 1993 this union, the Secondary Colleges Staff Association and the Tasmanian TAFE Staff Society merged with the Australian Education Union to form its Tasmanian branch.

The Textile Workers' Union was established in the aftermath of World War One, reflecting the diversification of the industry during the preceding years and its decentralisation during the 1920s. It amalgamated with the Federated Felt Hatting and Allied Trade Employees' Union of Australia in 1984, and with the Boot and Clothing trade unions thereafter to form the Amalgamated Footwear & Textile Workers Union of Australia in 1987. In 1992 the union amalgamated with the Clothing & Allied Trades Union of Australia to become the Textile Clothing & Footwear Union of Australia.

The New South Wales Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees' Union operated independently to the Plumbers and Gasfitters Employees' Union of Australia in the period 1979 to 1985. The Federal Council intervened by establishing a separate office in Sydney and a court case in 1981 upheld the Federal union's right to organise in New South Wales. The struggle for members and for recognition by the NSW Labor Council continued until the resignation of the State union's Secretary in 1985.

In 1924 the Railway and Tramway Officers' Association (registered in New South Wales in 1913) amalgamated with the first federally registered organisation of salaried officers, the Victorian Railways Administrative Officers' and Clerks' Association (formed in 1921) to become the Australasian Transport Officers' Federation. It changed its name in 1978 to the Australian Transport Officers' Federation. The Airlines Division held its inaugural meeting on 22 November 1980. By 1991 the union had merged with the Technical Service Guild of Australia and the Municipal Officers' Association of Australia to form the Australian Municipal Transport Energy Water Ports Community and Information Services Union. Further amalgamations in 1992 and 1993 with the Australian Social Welfare Union, the Australian Shipping and Travel Officers' Association, the Federated Clerks' Union and the Federated Municipal and Shire Council Employees' Union formed the Australian Municipal Administrative Clerical and Services Union, known as the Australian Services Union.

The Federated Felt Hatting and Allied Trade Employees' Union of Australia re-registered in 1950. Its predecessor, the Federated Felt Hatting Employees' Union of Australasia, registered in 1912 and its predecessors flourished from the nineteenth century up until midway through the twentieth century in what was a protected domestic industry. After 1950 the industry, and consequently, the union began to wane before the multiple onslaught of mechanisation, imports, and fashion. In 1984, it amalgamated with the Australian Textile Workers' Union and in 1987 became the Amalgamated Footwear and Textile Workers' Union of Australia after another amalgamation, this time with the Australian Boot Trade Employees' Federation. By 1992 this union had merged with the Clothing and Allied Trades Union of Australia to form the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia.

Formed originally in 1942 as the Australian Shipping Officers' Association, the union changed names in 1988 to the Australian Shipping and Travel Officers' Association. In 1993 it amalgamated with the Australian Municipal Transport Energy Water Ports Community and Information Service Union, which after further amalgamations later that year became the Australian Municipal Administrative Clerical and Services Union, known as the Australian Services Union.

The Municipal Officers' Association of Australia was formed in 1920 and was registered in 1921. It grew from a small and politically conservative union into a large and more vocal organisation. In 1991 it amalgamated with the Australian Transport Officers' Federation and the Technical Service Guild of Australia to form the Australian Municipal Transport Energy Water Ports Community and Information Services Union. After amalgamations with other unions in 1993, it changed its name to the Australian Municipal Administrative Clerical and Services Union, known as the Australian Services Union.

The union known as the Australian Services Union began in 1991 as an amalgamation of the Technical Service Guild of Australia, the Municipal Officers' Association of Australia and the Australian Transport Officers' Federation and took the name the Australian Municipal Transport Energy Water Ports Community and Information Services Union. It retained this name after amalgamation with the Australian Social Welfare Union and the Western Australian Railway Officers' Association in 1992 and with the Australian Shipping and Travel Officers' Association in 1993, but changed its name to the Australian Municipal Administrative Clerical and Services Union later in 1993 after amalgamation with the Federated Clerks' Union of Australia and the Federated Municipal and Shire Council Employees' Union of Australia. In 1994, the Totalisator Employees' Association of Victoria was incorporated in the union.

Formed from the Australian Association of Social Workers, which had been in existence since 1955, the Australian Social Welfare Union came into being in 1976. In 1992, it amalgamated into the Australian Municipal Transport Energy Water Ports Community and Information Services Union, known as the Australian Services Union. Members of the Australian Social Welfare Union now form the Social and Community Services Sector Industry Division at a Branch and National level. The addition of the SACS area into the ASU provided a vital link into the private sector, bringing together workers within local government with their colleagues employed by non-government agencies.

The Victorian Association of Journeymen Felt Hatters was established in 1878. In 1912 it officially joined with a number of other unions, including the Australasian Association of Felt Hatters established in 1892, the South Australian Association of Journeymen Felt Hatters, established in 1887, the Victorian Felt Hat Trimmers and Binders’ Society, established in 1891, the New South Wales Society of Journeymen Felt Hatters and Trimmers and Binders, established in 1902, and the Victorian Felt Hatters Assistants’ to form the Federated Felt Hatting Employees’ Union of Australasia. The union was registered under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act on 29 June 1912 although the amalgamation had established it in 1911.

The name of the Union was changed to the Federated Felt Hatting & Allied Trade Employees Union of Australia in March 1950. It amalgamated with the Australian Textile Workers Union in 1984, which in 1987 amalgamated with the Australian Boot Trade Employees Federation to form the Amalgamated Footwear and Textile Workers Union of Australia. A further amalgamation was completed in 1992 with the Clothing and Allied Trades Union of Australia which formed the Textile Clothing & Footwear Union of Australia.

The origins of the Victorian Secondary Teachers' Federation can be traced to the birth of the Victorian Teachers' Union.

The Victorian Teachers' Union (VTU) was established following negotiations from 1923 until 1926 between the Victorian State School Teachers' Union, the Victorian High School Teachers' Union and the Victorian Technical Teachers' Association. These three organisations amalgamated on 13 August 1926 to form the Victorian Teachers' Union with a membership of about 5000.

In 1948, however, secondary teachers broke away from the VTU to form the Victorian Secondary Masters' Professional Association which, in 1953, became the Victorian Secondary Teachers' Association (VSTA).

Although a breakaway from the VTU, growing dissatisfaction with the Victorian Teachers' Tribunal led, in 1976, to an agreement between the VTU, Technical Teachers' Union of Victoria and the Victorian Secondary Teachers' Association to work together on the basis of joint policy, for improved industrial relations for teachers.

In August 1981 the VTU Victorian Federation subcommittee agreed that there should be a Victorian Teachers' Federation modelled on the NSW Teachers' Federation.

In July 1984 the Teacher's Federation of Victoria was established as an umbrella organisation for industrial purposes, with the three teacher unions remaining autonomous. In 1990 the Technical Teachers' Union of Victoria and the Victorian Teachers' Union amalgamated as the Federated Teachers' Union of Victoria [FTUV]. By 1995 the Victorian Secondary Teachers' Association had amalgamated with the FTUV to form the Victorian Branch of the Australian Education Union.

The Federated Gas Employees' Industrial Union was registered in 1911. Charlie Crofts, who later became the secretary of the Commonwealth Council of Federated Unions from 1923 to 1927 and the Australian Council of Trade Unions from 1927 to 1943 was on the first executive and became Victorian then National secretary of the Union in 1914, a position he held till his death in 1950. The union had strong branches in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria. It amalgamated with the Transport Workers' Union of Australia in 1996.

The union was formed by the amalgamation of the Federated Moulders' (Metals) Union of Australia and the Amalgamated Metal Workers' & Shipwrights' Union in 1983. In 1985 the union changed its name to the Amalgamated Metal Workers' Union.

The Federated Enamellers' Union of Australia amalgamated with the Federated Stove & Piano Frame Makers' Association of Australia in 1935 to form the Federated Stovemakers' & Procelain Enamellers' Association of Australia.

The company was registered on 21 February 2000 in Victoria. Its head office is in Melbourne and it has offices in Sydney, Canberra and Auckland. Its Canberra office is the centre of its video and DVD distribution operations.

In 1918 various New South Wales teachers' associations such as the NSW Public School Teachers' Association, the NSW Public School Assistant Teachers' Association, the Women Teachers' Association, the Headmasters' Association, the Manual Training Teachers' Association and the Sewing Mistresses' Association, met to discuss the likelihood of an amalgamation. The result was the founding of the New South Wales Teachers' Federation in 1919. Without rivals it gained and held the loyalty of most teachers throughout the 1920s. Despite a lull in membership during the Great Depression years, the NSW Teachers' Federation formally linked itself to the state and national trade union movement during World War Two by affiliating with the NSW Labour Council and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. After the war large salary gains were achieved and about 90% of teachers became members of the union. The New South Wales Teachers' Federation was instrumental in lobbying the government of the day to introduce equal pay for women in 1958 and 1963. The NSW Teachers' Federation is affiliated with the Australian Education Union, constituting its NSW Branch whilst retaining its separate identity.

In October 2015 the union changed its name from The New South Wales Teachers Federation to the Australian Education Union New South Wales Teachers Federation Branch.

In 1918 various New South Wales teachers' associations such as the NSW Public School Teachers' Association, the NSW Public School Assistant Teachers' Association, the Women Teachers' Association, the Headmasters' Association, the Manual Training Teachers' Association and the Sewing Mistresses' Association, met to discuss the likelihood of an amalgamation. The result was the founding of the New South Wales Teachers' Federation in 1919. Without rivals it gained and held the loyalty of most teachers throughout the 1920s. Despite a lull in membership during the Great Depression years, the NSW Teachers' Federation formally linked itself to the state and national trade union movement during World War Two by affiliating with the NSW Labour Council and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. After the war large salary gains were achieved and about 90% of teachers became members of the union. The New South Wales Teachers' Federation was instrumental in lobbying the government of the day to introduce equal pay for women in 1958 and 1963. The NSW Teachers' Federation is affiliated with the Australian Education Union, constituting its NSW Branch whilst retaining its separate identity.

The Public Health Association of Australia aims to encourage research and promote knowledge in the wider community of the economic, social and environmental factors affecting public health. It is a successor to the Australian and New Zealand Society for Epidemiological Research in Community Health /Australian Public Health Association. Its major activities are advocacy for the betterment of public health, holding conferences on epidemiology, immunisation and other public health issues, and producing the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. Before 2001 its name was the Public Health Association.

The Australian Railways Union formed in September 1920 with the amalgamation of the Queensland Railways Union, the New South Wales Amalgamated Railway and Tramway Service Association, the Victorian Railway Union, the Railway and Tramway Employees Association of South Australia and the Tasmanian Railway Union. It was the first Australian all-grades organisation of railway workers and was federally registered on 8 February 1921. In 1993 the ARU merged with other unions to form the Rail Tram & Bus Industry Union.

The Victorian Teachers Union (VTU), Victorian Secondary Teachers Association (VSTA) and Technical Teachers Union of Victoria (TTUV) (as the Technical Teachers Association of Victoria (TTAV) became) co-operated on campaigns from 1979 to 1990, particularly around state elections, and in 1984 formed the Teachers Federation of Victoria (TFV), to streamline and co-ordinate industrial representation. It was abolished in 1990 when the VTU and TTUV merged to form the Federated Teachers Union of Victoria (FTUV).

This body represented members in primary and technical schools, TAFE teachers, instructors in disability services and teachers in Adult Multicultural Education Services.

The inaugural meeting of the Nutrition Society of Australia occurred on 23 January 1975 following the merger of a number of local professional nutrition groups. The Society comprises a number of regional groups, Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Newcastle, Wollongong and Tasmania.

Operative Bootmakers Union of South Australia was formed in 1882 and subsequently participated in the conference to establish a federal body. This was achieved in 1907-1908, when the Operative Bootmakers Union of South Australia became the South Australian Branch of the Federation

The Humanities Research Centre was established in 1972 as a national and international centre for excellence in the Humanities and a catalyst for innovative Humanities scholarship and research within the Australian National University.

The HRC established the Freilich Foundation for the study of bigotry and tolerance in 1995. It works closely with ANU’s recently established Digital Humanities Hub. Within the University, the HRC is now part of a group of five centres that sit under the Research School of Humanities and the Arts (RSHA). Threaded through our Centre programs are our disciplinary and interdisciplinary strengths in literature, history, art, film, philosophy, critical theory, Enlightenment and Romanticism studies, Postcolonial Studies, Environmental Humanities, and Indigenous heritage, art and culture. The HRC collaborates with Australian and international research centres, libraries and other cultural institutions such as the National Museum of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery. The Centre continues to strongly advocate the importance of humanities in the public sphere through its participation in key national and international networks such as the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS), The Australian Consortium of Humanities Research Centres (ACHRC) and the Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes (CHCI).

The Department of Mathematics originally offered a course in Pure Mathematics and Applied Mathematics as part of a Bachelor degree in Arts or Science. In 1964, the Department of Applied Mathematics was formed with Professor Archibald Brown as the inaugural Head of Applied Mathematics in the School of General Studies. As a result of recommendations made after a review of the mathematics departments in 1981, the Departments of Applied Mathematics and Pure Mathematics were amalgamated on 1 January 1982.

Registered in 1980, the CSIRO Officers' Association had its origins in the Association of Officers of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (the CSIR Officers' Association) which was formed in 1945 but was renamed in 1949 as the Association of Officers of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. By 1992 this Association had amalgamated with the CSIRO Technical Association to form the CSIRO Staff Association, but was soon after merged into the Public Sector Union then the Community and Public Sector Union in 1994.

The Pyrmont Sugar Works Employees' Union was also known as the Sugar Works Employees' Union and was registered as such under the New South Wales Trade Union Act on 9 July 1901.

The New South Wales Public Service Professional Officers' Association was formed in 1915 to represent professional staff employed by the NSW Public Service. It amalgamated with the Public Service Association of New South Wales prior to 1999.

The Department of Mathematics, was established in the Research School of Physical Sciences by the University Council in 1959 on the initiative of Director, Sir Mark Oliphant. The foundation head was Professor Bernhard Hermann Neumann, 1962-1975. Early chair holders were Professor J W Miles, 1962-1965 and Professor Kurt Mahler, 1963-1968; Professor Robert Edmund Edwards, 1970-1986. In 1989 it became part of the School of Mathematical Sciences, which was renamed the Mathematical Sciences Institute in 2002.

The Newcastle Coal Trimmers' Friendly Accident Society was registered as a trade union in 1882 but went out of existence in the 1890s. The union was resuscitated and registered in 1901 as the Newcastle Coal Trimmers' Federal Union, after coal trimmers stopped work out of respect for the death of Queen Victoria and were penalised by employers. Coal trimmers were the waterside workers who loaded coal as cargo and into bunkers on steam ships. The union became the Newcastle Coal Trimmers Branch of the Waterside Workers' Federation in 1921.

The Victorian Operative Bricklayers' Society was established on 8 April 1856 at the Belvidere Hotel, Brunswick Street in Collingwood 'for the purpose of mutual support of the Members in case of accident, and for the Burial of Members and Members' Wives'. Apart from the central Melbourne (No. 1) Lodge, lodges were also formed at Bendigo, Prahran and Richmond. It was an early party to eight-hours agreements but remained unregistered until 1969. In 1988 it joined the two Victorian plaster industry unions to form the Victorian State Building Trades Union.

Ian Hossack was an Educational Administrator in Papua New Guinea and held positions in the Planning Section of the Papua New Guinea Department of Education and was Assistant Director of the Technical Division of the Department in February 1972. He subsequently worked in the University of PNG Educational Research Unit.

Allan Barton was born in Murrumbeena, Victoria on 3 March 1933. He studied at Melbourne University 1951 – 1954, before undertaking his PhD in economics at Christ's College, Cambridge University 1956-59. Barton taught economics at the University of Adelaide in 1959, then moved to Macquarie University in 1967 as Foundation Professor of Accounting. Barton held a number of roles at the Australian National University including Head of the Department of Accounting and Public Finance 1975-80, Dean of the Faculty of Economics 1979-83, University Treasurer 1984-94, University Council member 1983-86, and Pro-Vice Chancellor (Finance and Development) 1992-96, and retiring in 1998. Barton passed away on 9 June 2012 in Canberra.

The New Guinea Society was set up at a meeting in Canberra on 31 July 1957, following a call for expressions of interest from Ralph Bulmer, Margaret McArthur, Murray Groves and others. The Society was based in Canberra and drew most of its membership from the Australian National University, the Commonwealth Department of Territories and CSIRO. Professor J.W. Davidson, dean of the Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, required all PhD students in the Research School of Pacific Studies to belong to the Society.

Wes Whitten was born on 1 August 1918 in Macksville, New South Wales and was educated at the University of Sydney (BVSc (hons) 1939, BSc 1941, DSc 1962). His positions included the Walter and Eliza Hall Fellow in Veterinary Science 1940-41; Australian Army Veterinary Corps and Australian Army Service Corps Captain 1941-45; Research Officer, CSIRO 1946-49; Director of Animal Breeding and Fellow, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University 1950-61; Assistant Director (Endocrine Products), National Biological Standards Laboratory, Canberra 1961-66; Staff Scientist, The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA 1966-69, Senior Staff Scientist 1969-80, Assistant Director (Research) 1971-72; Research Associate, Department of Zoology, University of Tasmania 1980-89; Associated Scientist, CSIRO Wildlife and Associate, Cooperative Research Centre for Biological Control of Vertebrate Pest Populations. He had a wide variety of professional interests including animal breeding for scientific research, cloning and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Whitten died on 24 May 2010.

Michael Robin Ovington was the Australian Consul (Consul d'Australie in French) in Noumea from 1978 to 1980, prior to Vanuatu's independence in 1980. On 31 July 1980 he took up office as the first Australian High Commissioner to Vanuatu. Ovington died in Canberra in June 2006.

Air Pilots' Guild of Australia (APGA) was formed in 1968 by Ian Archibald Cameron, a former member of the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP), and registered under the Conciliation and Arbitration Act on 3 February 1970. The AFAP were against this rival union from the outset and throughout the 1970s made attempts to have the Guild (APGA) de-registered. Throughout the 1970s the Guild struggled to maintain the membership numbers required to remain a registered union, it also had difficulties collecting membership subscriptions which meant that they had very little funds. Compounding the difficulties were the numerous cases brought against the Guild by other organisations which were heard by the Flight Crew Officer's Tribunal. A final case brought against the Guild by David George Shrubb (acting as himself but also representing the AFAP) went to the Federal Court. Despite the efforts of the Guild's Industrial Officer, Frank Stevens, to put the case for the Guild, the outcome was its de-registration. Cameron attempted to get this decision overturned, but was unsuccessful. The AFAP finally registered in 1986.

Ken Granger studied at the University of Papua New Guinea circa 1968 undertaking his honours thesis.

John Alexander Collier (Kolia) was born in Sydney in 1931. He attended Sydney Grammar School and completed his secondary education in England in 1951. Having enrolled in a medical course at the University of London, he returned to Australia and commenced work in Papua New Guinea as a medical assistant for the Australasian Petroleum Company. After visiting London again in 1958, he returned to Sydney where he completed teacher training and took up a teaching position in New Britain in mid 1960, and in 1964 joined the Catholic Mission at Vanimo as a teacher. In 1966 he returned to Port Moresby. While teaching at Bavaroko, he enrolled in the University of Papua New Guinea, completing his BA (Hons) in 1971. He was awarded a PhD in 1975 for his research among the Balawaia people in the Rigo sub-district where he had been living in Tauruba village since 1972. At that time he changed his name from Collier to the phonetic form, Kolia. From 1971 Kolia was employed at the UPNG as a research assistant, but by 1973 he was mostly occupied in editing the journal Oral History. When the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies was established in 1974, it took over production of Oral History and Kolia joined its staff. Kolia became a naturalised citizen of newly independent PNG in 1976. His History of the Balawaia was published in 1977, followed by a formidable body of literary work: eight novels, several short stories, plays and long poems, and press articles on anthropological topics. He was also an editor of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies journal, Bikmaus, and edited a collection of poems, Melanesian Thoughts and Words. He worked as a Project and publications officer at the PNG Institute of Technology from 1989 until 1992.

Rev Dr Sione Latukefu was born at Kolovai on Tongatapu in 1927. He was ordained a minister of the Free Wesleyan Church in 1960. Following teacher training in Tonga and at the University of Queensland he undertook PhD studies at the Australian National University, graduating in 1967 with a thesis that explored the subject of Church and state in Tonga during the period from 1826-1875. Lātūkefu was appointed an historian at the University of Papua New Guinea (founded in 1965) where he remained for 18 years. He wrote a history of the Tongan Constitution in 1975 to celebrate its centenary and worked actively to promote the study of Pacific history. In retirement, he became principal of the Pacific Theological College in Suva, Fiji, 1989-1991. He took the leading role in founding the Tongan History Association in Ha’apai in 1989 and remained its president until his death.

The first edition of the Maitland Mercury was published on Saturday, 7 January 1843 as a weekly paper. From 1 January 1846 the Mercury was published twice weekly on Wednesday and Saturday. After 50 years of steady growth in 1894, the Mercury was published as an afternoon daily for 95 years until 5 June 1989 when the Mercury became a morning daily.

The first shop committees in the New South Wales Railways were formed at Eveleigh and Enfield railway workshops in about 1926. At the end of 1929 six workshops were affiliated to a Central Council of Railway Shop Committees: Chullora Signal Branch, Per Way Shops and Electric Car Shops, Enfield Locomotives, Clyde Workshop, and Mortdale Workshop. The first monthly issue of The Magnet, the official journal of the Central Council of Railway Shop Committees, was distributed free throughout the railway workshops in 1934. From 1960s, the campaigning activities of the shop committees were assumed by the trade unions.

The Reverend Shirley Waldemar Baker was an English Wesleyan missionary who arrived in Tonga from Australia in 1860. During his stay of more than 30 years, Baker became a close adviser to King Tupou I. He began his role of adviser to the King in 1862 and was the author of the constitution which the King granted to his people in 1875. Baker was also largely responsible for negotiating the treaty of friendship signed between Tonga and Germany in 1876. The treaty attracted the attention of the British authorities and Baker was recalled from Tonga by the missionary committee in 1879. Baker returned to Tonga in 1880 and was installed by Tupou as premier. In 1885 he established the Free Church, Wesleyan in doctrine but free from Australian control. In 1890 he was deported by the high commissioner, Sir John Thurston.

Michael Monsell Davis, BA (Hons), PhD Macquarie University, was a social anthropologist, ethnographer and author, with connections to the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. Davis spent many years observing and recording historical and ethnographic data about the people living in the coastal villages opposite Yule Island, Papua New Guinea, His research interests included language, crime and the law, distance education, religion, witchcraft and totemism, AIDS/HIV, politics and government. Davis also studied the language and genealogies of the Roro speaking people of the Central Province region of Kairuku-Hiri and in the coastal villages of Nabuapaka and Bereina. His diaries were consulted by Australian author, Drusilla Modjeska, whose writings reflect his observations, particularly in her book, The Mountain (2012).

Ted Steele received his PhD in Immunology in 1976 (University of Adelaide) for research on immunological mechanisms against diseases of microsal surfaces such as cholera. He then began a post-doctoral fellowship at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University, studying mechanisms of antibody diversity and anti-immune reactions. In 1977 this post-doctoral work continued at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto, Canada (through to 1980) and during these years his interests in immunology became intimately involved with general evolutionary mechanisms as well as with the growth of knowledge and the philosophy of science. Steele’s work on the theory of evolution aroused considerable interest, criticism and controversy and, in 1980-1981 he spent a post-doctoral year in London (Clinical Research Centre, Harrow) where the controversy surrounding his studies reached a peak. In 1981 Steele returned to Australia to continue post-doctoral studies at the John Curtin School of Medical Research. In 1985 Steele took a lectureship at the University of Wollongong, where he was able to continue his work and to rise to the position of associate professor. From the late 1900s Steele began to publicly voice his concerns over the marking standards and academic management at the University and, on 26 February 2001, he was summarily dismissed from his tenured post of associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences for 'breaking an employment relationship'. This ‘unfair dismissal’ issue was resolved on 6 July 2002 when Steele and the University of Wollongong came to a confidential agreement. Although little is known in regard to the settlement, Steele did not return to the University. Ted Steele was Honorary Visiting Fellow John Curtin School of Medical Research, 1986-2003 and Research School of Biological Sciences, 2003-2009 and, in 2010, Research Director of CY O'Connnor ERADE Village Foundation, Canning Vale, Western Australia.

Emeritus Professor Marr is a specialist in Vietnamese history, politics and culture. He served in the US Marine Corps between 1959 and 1964. He taught at Berkeley and Cornell, and headed the Indochina Resource Center in Washington, before coming to the ANU in 1975. He served as editor of Vietnam Today for the Australia-Vietnam Society 1978-1982. He was involved in projects relating to Vietnamese material library cataloguing and coding Vietnamese script in computers.

Significant publications include 'Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945', and 'Vietnam: State, War, and Revolution (1945–1946)'.

Qualifications: BA(Dartmouth), MA, PhD(Berkeley).

Francis (Frank) John Gosson was born at Macksville, New South Wales, on 28 June 1919. During World War II, he served with the 53rd Battalion from 19 February 1940 through to 7 June 1943. In 1942 he was involved in action against the Japanese near Port Moresby and salvaged a series of photographs, which predated the war, from an abandoned house near Rouna Falls. Frank Gosson gave the photographs to an ex Papua New Guinea Patrol Officer (KIAP), Robert Cruikshank, who referred them to the National Archives of Australia. The National Archives of Australia transferred the collection to the Pacific Research Archives in 2012.

Professor Tryon, Pacific scholar in linguistics at the Australian National University, was a leading scholar of Pacific and Austronesian languages, particularly those from Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and the Loyalty Islands. Born in New Zealand, he completed his Bachelor's degree at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. Studying French and Classics, he became a fluent French speaker. He moved to Australia during the mid 1960s, where he taught at Australian National University.

From 1969 to 1971, Professor Tryon collected new and old languages in Vanuatu and developed extensive wordlists. He developed the first hypotheses about relationships between the French speaking nations and presented his findings at the First International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics in Honolulu in 1974. From wordlists obtained from 179 communities he found that there were more than one hundred distinct languages in Vanuatu and that the modern, indigenous languages of Vanuatu were part of Austronesian language family.

Professor Tryon began to study the languages of the Solomon Islands beginning in 1978. He also authored works on the pidgin and creole languages of the Pacific Islands, including Pijin of the Solomon Islands and Bislama of Vanuatu. His masterwork was the 'Comparative Austronesian Dictionary', an edited five-volume work published by Mouton de Gruyter in 1995. It contained annotated wordlists for 1310 meanings organized by semantic domains in 80 Austronesian languages, 40 of them Oceanic.

Prior to his retirement in 2007 Professor Tryon was heavily involved in university administration and for part of this time was the Deputy Director of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University. His involvement in the wider work of the school strengthened his interests in the governance and sociology of the countries of the South Pacific, and many of his more recent publications have been in this area. He was variously a Constitutional Adviser to Vanuatu Government and a member of the Council of the University of New Caledonia. In 2004 he was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French Government, in recognition of his contributions to French language and culture, especially in the Pacific, and for his work in fostering bilateral relations between Australia and France.

Joe Barr was born on 29 April 1941 in Preston, England. The family moved to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in 1948 and then to Kampala, Uganda, in 1951. He went to school in in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi but left at the age of 15 to join the Royal Navy as a boy seaman. He left the Royal Navy in 1971 having served 12 years as aircrew (Observer/Navigator) in Fleet Air Arm helicopters in a variety of roles. He emigrated to Australia in 1971 and worked for 2 years as an Air Traffic Controller. In 1973 - 1974 he was an assistant office manager in Melbourne before moving to Canberra in 1974 to join the then Marine Operations Centre (later Australian Coastal Surveillance Centre) as a marine search and rescue coordinator. When he left the position in 1981, he was the Controller (Operational Manager) and he then joined the National Disasters Organisation (later Emergency Management Australia) as a planning officer.
Transferred to the Refugees and Disasters Section of what is now AusAID in the early 1980s, he worked as an overseas disasters liaison officer with special interests in the development of disaster management assistance to Pacific countries. He was involved in Australian aid support programs following regional disasters in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Samoa as well as Cambodia. In 1994 he returned to Emergency Management Australia (EMA) as the Director of Policy, Planning and Operations and spent periods acting as Director General. Set up in 1974 to coordinate national disaster management, EMA was an independent, low-profile organisation of about 70 personnel in Canberra and the Australian Department of Defence, answering directly to the Minister for Defence, Robert Ray.

In 1995, Joe Barr was nominated by Australia to become the first Australian member of the international UNDAC (United Nations Disaster Assistance and Coordination) Team. In 1996, he retired from the Public Service to set up 'Pacific Emergency Management Associates', based in Canberra (ACT) as a consultancy agency, which he ran until his retirement in 2007. During this period he participated in UNDAC post-disaster missions to the Seychelles (flood), Papua New Guinea (tsunami and drought), Turkey, Afghanistan, Indonesia, India (earthquake) and East Timor (post Indonesian departure).

Other consultancies were to the European Union, AusAID, the United Nations Development Program and other UN Agencies, USAID, Emergency Management Australia, various Pacific regional organisations, mostly involved in training and development activities, including developing manuals, project design and workshop planning. He developed the first Australian disaster management assistance programs for Pacific countries and worked in Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Cook Islands, Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Philippines, East Timor, Kenya, Uganda, Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Carol Jenkins was a renowned medical anthropologist who worked with sex workers, transgender people and drug users. Carol was born in 1945 in the USA but she spent her life working for the health and human rights of marginalized people throughout the world, using her research skills to collect data and document the lives of people in order to improve their situations with evidence of what would benefit them.

Carol Jenkin's work and publications included a study of life opportunities for transgenders in Thailand, a study of rape of sex workers in Cambodia, and HIV assessments in the Middle East and North Africa. She pioneered the use of respondent driven sampling with sex workers in Fiji, Cambodia and elsewhere. In 2004, she established the Travis Jenkins Memorial Award in memory of her husband. The Award is presented each year to a current or former injecting drug user who has made an outstanding contribution to reducing drug related harm. In an interview with Carol Jenkins in 2006, which appeared in 'In SHARP Focus', No. 1, 2006 (OSI, Open Society Institute, New York) , she described herself as a medical anthropologist and human biologist who worked for 10 years on human growth and nutrition in developing countries. By the early 1990s her research interests had moved to study infectious diseases and HIV. She served in the following positions: Principal Research Officer, Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research; the Head of Social and Behavioral Research for Sexual and Reproductive Health at ICDDR,B (Bangladesh); Resident Advisor for Family Health International, Bangladesh; Senior Scientist for Social and Behavioral HIV Prevention Research at the Division of AIDS at NIAID (NIH); Senior Regional Advisor for the Asia-Near East for USAID, and was a consultant for a large number of international donors. She was the director of 'Alternate Visions', a company working for UNAIDS in Fiji, Pakistan and Papua New Guinea. Carol Jenkins died on 22 January 2008.

Counsellor to AIDS patients at St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney.

The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA), is the peak body representing the interests of Australia’s 320,000+ postgraduate students. Founded in 1979, CAPA is a membership based non-profit organisation. CAPA’s member organisations include 33 postgraduate associations, and the National Indigenous Postgraduate Association Aboriginal Corporation (NIPAAC).

Reginald Appleyard is Emeritus Professor of Economic History and Honorary Senior Research Fellow, UWA Business School, the University of Western Australia. Born and educated in Western Australia, he did graduate studies in economics (M.A., PhD) at Duke University, North Carolina. From 1957 to 1967 he held academic appointments at the Australian National University, Canberra, before appointment to the Foundation Chair of Economic History at UWA, a position he held until his retirement in 1992.

Author/Editor of many books and over 100 articles and reports, his main field of study is economic demography, and his specialty is international migration. He coordinated a UNFPA-funded project on Emigration Dynamics in Developing Countries (4 volumes), and from 1992 to 2002 was editor of International Migration (Geneva).

The Australian Data Archive (ADA) was established at the Australian National University in 1981 and provides a national service for the collection and preservation of computer readable data relating to social, political and economic affairs. The ADA is a consortium managed by the ANU and includes partner nodes at the University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, University of Technology Sydney and University of Western Australia.

Jack Read joined the Australian administration of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea as a cadet in 1929. He worked as a Patrol Officer in most parts of the Territory, having covered New Britain and the mainland from the Sepik River to the Morobe Goldfields, but had not been located in Bougainville until his appointment in November 1941 as Assistant District Officer in charge of the Buka Passage Sub-District, under District Officer Merrylees. Following the Japanese entry into the war on 8 December 1941, Read helped evacuate most European residents from Buka, established inland dumps of emergency provisions and shifted his administration to Bougainville Island just before a Japanese attack on the Sub-District Headquarters on 24 January 1942. Following the winding up of civil administration in February 1942, Read, the only remaining government representative was appointed Lieutenant in the Australian Navy under Lieutenant Commander Feldt with instructions to remain in Bougainville as a coastwatcher.

The Eureka Youth League was formed in 1941 with the aim of supporting the war effort while protecting the rights and conditions of women, youth and juveniles in industry.
By October 1942 the State Council of the League had announced its intention to 'draw into its ranks the clearest thinking youth of our generation. We aim to help the labour movement win the youth for the advance to the new socialist order and to train our members to be honest, clear thinking and energetic builders of the new socialist order.'
Post-war the League acted as an educational, social and political organisation, one highlight being the organisation of the Youth Carnival for Peace in 1952.

The Vanuatu Land Use Planning Project, initiated by AusAid in late 1995.

The Amalgamated Society of Engineers was formed in 1851 through proposals drawn up by three unions, the Old Mechanics, the Steam Engine Makers' Society and the General Smiths. However, because some branches of the unions involved failed to ratify the amalgamation the union formed with only 5000 members (less than the membership of the Old Mechanics). Over the following year many of the societies gradually decided on formal amalgamation including the New Society of Millwrights; the Old Society of Engineers and Machinists of London; the London Smiths; the Steam Engine Makers' Society; the United Machine Workers' Asssociation; the United Kingdom Society of Amalgamated Smiths and Strikers; the Associated Brassfounders', Turners', Fitters' and Finishers' Society; the North of England Brassfounders' Society; the Amalgamated Instrument Makers' Society and the Amalgamated Society of General Toolmakers, Engineers and Machinists. By the end of 1851 the number of members had increased to 10481 and the birth of one of the most influential unions in the United Kingdom was complete. However, almost immediately the union was nearly bankrupted through the engineering lock-out of 1852 where employers demanded that workers sign a declaration stating they would not join a trade union movement. After three months the union relented and the men returned to work but from this setback the union recovered quickly (so much so that by 1861 it consisted of 236 branches). The union continued to grow in the following years until in 1920 when the Amalgamated Society of Engineers along with seventeen other Unions joined together to form the Amalgamated Engineering Union.

The history of the union can be traced back to the formation of the "Old Mechanics" of 1826, which grew into the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE) in 1851. The ASE was one of the 'New Model Unions' of the 1850s-1870s. These unions, which also included the Ironfounders, Builders, and Carpenters' societies, rejected Chartism and the ideas of Robert Owen in favour of a more moderate policy based on 'prudence', 'respectability' and steady growth. Great importance was attached to the question of finance, as substantial funds would not only provide maintenance for members involved in strike action, but also help to deter the employers from attacking the organisation. Since its members were skilled and relatively highly paid, it was possible for the ASE to charge contributions of one shilling a week and to build up a fund of unprecedented proportions. In 1852 and 1896, the ASE was involved in extended national lockouts which greatly weakened the organisation. Many local and regional unions joined the ASE in subsequent years and in 1920, after the acquisition of nine fresh member unions, the name of the organisation was changed to the Amalgamated Engineering Union. The AEU continued to grow and absorb smaller unions. Its largest membership growth came during the Second World War when its all-male membership voted to admit women for the first time and 100,000 joined almost immediately. However, the AEU also lost its overseas branches in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, who became independent unions. The AEU merged with the National Union of Foundry Workers (NUFW) in 1967 and the Draughtsmen and Allied Technicians' Association (DATA) in 1971 to form the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers.

Born in Wanganui New Zealand and educated at schools in Wanganui and Christchurch, Brash began his adult life on the left of the political spectrum, opting out of school military cadets as a conscientious objector at the age of 15, and voting for the Labour Party in a number of general elections. Gradually he came to recognise the benefits of the market economy. Brash has a PhD in Economics from the Australian National University, with his thesis on American investment in Australian industry being published in 1966 by both Harvard University Press and the ANU Press. He holds a Master of Arts degree with First Class Honours in Economics and a Bachelor of Arts with majors in Economics and History, both from the University of Canterbury. Brash helped establish Amnesty International's Freedom Foundation in New Zealand in the early nineties. He is also a former director of one of New Zealand's largest social service agencies - Presbyterian Support Services (Northern) - and became a trustee of the Plunket Foundation in 2009. Brash has held a wide variety of positions in both the public and private sectors. He was Reserve Bank Governor, 1988-2002, Leader of the National Party, 2003-2006 and, for seven months in 2011, Leader of the ACT Party in New Zealand. He is currently (2015) the chairman of the New Zealand subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and in the last few years has been involved in a number of consulting projects, including advising the Government of The Bahamas on GST. Early in 2014, he published ‘Incredible Luck’, a book assessing his life and recording his opinions on a range of important issues, including drug policy, China's relationship with New Zealand, the Key Government, and the future of democracy.

Edward Llewellyn Gordon Thomas, known as Gordon Thomas, was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1890 and died in Sydney in 1966. He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in 1917 but was discharged as medically unfit in 1919. After schooling abroad and working in newspapers in Canada, he moved to New Guinea in 1911, taking on a variety of jobs, including editor of the Rabaul Times from 1925-27 and 1933-42. He was living in Rabaul in 1942, the capital of the Australian United Nations Mandated Territory, when it was invaded by the Japanese and all civilians and military personnel were interned as POW's (Prisoners of War). Some soldiers and civilians managed to escape, but 106 Australians were executed in horrific circumstances in the Tol and Waitavalo plantations. Arrangements were made to ship the remaining POW's to Hainan, but Thomas and three others were retained to run Rabaul's commercial freezer and ice plant. Most of the remaining civilians and military personnel imprisoned in the town were doomed when they were put on board the Japanese ship Montevideo Maru, a freighter requisitioned by the Japanese navy. They were on their way to Hainan when the unmarked POW ship was torpedoed by an American submarine off the coast of the Philippines with the loss of 1054 lives. Thomas Gordon and the other men spent the next three years as POW's in Rabaul. Thomas' skills as a journalist became very useful to the Japanese, writing news stories and propaganda to assuage the locals into accepting Japanese rule.

The massacres that took place at the Tol and Waitavalo plantations have been described as the "one of the most callous atrocities of the Pacific War". (Max Uechtritz, asopa.typepad.com, 5 February 2017). The remains of some of the executed Australians were recovered post-war and buried in Rabaul's Bita Paka war cemetery.

Dr H.M. (Mac) Boot joined the staff of the Economic History Department at the Australian National as a lecturer in 1970. He retired as Head of Department in 2002 to join the School of Demography in the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences (then called Demography and Sociology Program in the Research School of Arts and Social Sciences) where his research interests moved to British historical demography. During the last ten years or so Dr Boot’s time in the department of Economic History his interests focussed mainly on the history of wages and human capital formation between the mid-18th century and the late 19th century. This interest yielded four articles published in the Economic History Review between 1991 and 2006 on the relationship of relative growth earnings to the timing and relative improvement in human capital. An important sub-theme was the timing of the onset of sustained increases of the earnings between middle class and working class occupations, particular between the late 1780s and the 1850’s and , where possible, between men and women. These differences have long been the basis of significant differences in the interpretation of the Industrial Revolution and relative distribution of its benefits to different social classes in Britain.

Boot’s comparisons of middle class and working class earnings show how middle class earnings began to rise significantly earlier and faster that average working class earnings, and that male earnings in the cotton textile industry were significantly higher than female earnings even in similar occupations, though the male/female wage gap closed sharply between the late 1860s to the 1890s as the growing productivity of key male occupations in the industry increased the demand for adult female workers, whilst reducing the level of male skill required to maintain a give quality of their output. (EHR, ‘New Estimates…’, 2006). His belief was that the interpretation of increasing differences between earnings growth are easily distorted, partly because working class earnings are expressed as an average of many different occupations with a wide range of required skill levels and wage earnings. The great need was to identify the earnings of specific occupation groups. For example, the required levels of skill for men working, and their earnings, in the Boulton and Watt factories in Birmingham, increased rapidly in the late 18th century, whilst those of common labourers remain almost unchanged until well into the 19th century. Boot spent the last two years or so of his time in the Economic History Department collecting data from company archives and other sources of wage earnings between 1780 and 1850. His collection forms the greater part of this archive.

Thomas Polk Willsallen first settled at Gunnible Station in the 1870s. The station was acquired by RA Staughton from Thomas's sons, Thomas and Percival Willsallen, in 1924.

The precursor to the Women’s Bureau was established in 1963 within the Department of Labour and National Service, with the intention that it primarily be a research unit that would also serve as a point of contact for non-governmental women’s organisations. This became the Women’s Bureau in 1968, and was concerned with such issues as equal pay and childcare policies. The Bureau was dissolved in 1997.

Dr McCullagh was appointed a Research Fellow in the Department of Experimental Pathology in the John Curtin School of Medical Research in 1966, then promoted to Senior Research Fellow in 1971 and Senior Fellow in 1974 in the Department of Immunology. He was a member of the ANU Council from 1988 to 1992, elected by the non-professorial staff of the Institute of Advanced Studies.

Prometheus Information Pty Ltd is a computer related service company in Braddon, Australian Capital Territory. This private company was founded in August 1992.

The Canberra University College (CUC) amalgamated with the Australian National University in 1960. In 1961 the former CUC School of Oriental Languages became the Faculty of Oriental Studies. This was renamed the Faculty of Asian Studies in 1970. In 2006, ANU abolished the former distinction between research schools and faculties, creating a college structure combining both elements. The Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (as it was re-named in 1994) joined the Faculty of Asian Studies in the new College of Asia and the Pacific.

Sir Robert Bowden Madgwick, educationist, was born on 10 May 1905 in North Sydney, second of three sons of native-born parents Richard Chalton Madgwick, an Anglican clergyman's son who became a tram driver, and his wife Annie Jane, née Elston. Robert attended Naremburn Public and North Sydney Boys' High schools. He entered the University of Sydney (B.Ec. Hons, 1927; M.Ec., 1932) on a Teachers' College scholarship, took some history subjects and shared the first university medal in economics with (Sir) Herman Black. While studying at Teachers' College, he partnered Black and (Sir) Ronald Walker in a successful debating team. Walker and Madgwick later wrote an economics textbook for schools, An Outline of Australian Economics (Sydney, 1931).

After teaching at Nowra (1927) and Parkes (1927-28) intermediate high schools, Madgwick was appointed (1929) temporary lecturer in the faculty of economics at the University of Sydney. He obtained a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship in 1933 and enrolled at Balliol College, Oxford (D.Phil., 1936); his thesis was published as Immigration into Eastern Australia 1788-1851 (London, 1937, Sydney, 1969). He took up a lectureship in economic history at the University of Sydney in 1936, where he helped to found the Sydney University Lecturers' Association. From 1938 he was secretary of the University Extension Board. After World War II broke out, he was involved in planning an army education scheme (known as the Australian Army Education Service from October 1943). He had wanted to serve abroad with the Australian Imperial Force, but on 1 March 1941 was mobilized as temporary lieutenant colonel and sent to Army Headquarters, Melbourne, to head the new service. In July 1943 he was promoted temporary colonel and given the title of director of army education. Madgwick played a major part in establishing the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. He also sat (1943-46) on two inter-departmental committees which set out the future role of the Commonwealth government in education. Transferring to the Reserve of Officers on 19 April 1946, he worked (from October) as secretary of the interim council of the Australian National University. He continued to champion the cause of adult education, but his claims for a Commonwealth-funded national system were thwarted by lack of support from either the Federal government or the Opposition.

In February 1947 Madgwick accepted the wardenship of New England University College, Armidale, New South Wales. When the institution became the University of New England in 1954, he was appointed vice-chancellor. As chairman (1964-66) of the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee, Madgwick successfully rebutted the conclusion of (Sir) Leslie Martin's committee on the future of tertiary education in Australia that the provision of 'distance education' was not a university function. Appointed O.B.E. in 1962, Madgwick was knighted in 1966, the year in which he retired. The Federal government sought his advice on grants to teachers' colleges in early 1967, and chose him to succeed (Sir) James Darling as chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, a post he took up on 1 July 1967. He chaired the Australian Frontier Commission in 1974-76.

Professor John Carew Eccles was born on 27 January 1903 in Melbourne, Victoria. He was awarded MBBS, University of Melbourne 1925; BA, Oxford University 1927; MA, DPhil, Oxford University 1929; and was Scholar at Oxford University 1932-1937 and in Electrophysiology, University of Sydney 1937-1944. Eccles was Professor in Physiology, University of Otago 1944-1951 before joining the Australian National University as founding Professor in the Department of Physiology, John Curtin School of Medical Research 1951-1966. In 1963 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine (with Alan L Hodgkin and Andrew F Huxley). After his role as Professor and Head of Physiology at ANU, Professor Eccles took up an appointment as Professor in Neurophysiology at the Institute of Biomedical Research 1966-1968 and as Professor in Neurobiology, State University of New York 1968-1997. Eccles died on 2 May 1997 in Contra, Switzerland.

Quentin Boyce Gibson was born on 31 August 1913, into a family of Australian philosophers, including his father WR Boyce Gibson, and his brother Alexander (Sandy) Gibson, who both held the position of Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne. He first lectured at Canberra University College in 1934; read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford 1935-36; lectured at the University of Western Australia 1937; returned to Canberra University College 1945, the first full-time appointment in Philosophy. In 1948 he took leave from CUC to accept a two-year appointment by the newly established Australian National University as a Research Fellow. Upon his return to CUC in 1950, his position was reclassified as a Senior Lectureship, and in 1959 he was promoted to Associate Professor. His position as Associate Professor in Philosophy was transferred to the School of General Studies, Faculty of Arts at the ANU in 1960. He retired in 1978. The Quentin Gibson Prize was established to be awarded annually to the top student with first-class honours in Philosophy. Gibson died on 24 November 2001.

Douglas Berry Copland was born on 24 February 1894 in Otago, New Zealand. Copland was a founding member and first President of the Economic Society of Australia and New Zealand 1925-28, and editor-in-chief of the society's journal 'Economic Record' 1925-1945. From 1924-1939 he was Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Melbourne but later accepted a secondment to Canberra as Commonwealth Prices Commissioner 1939-1945 and as economic consultant to the Prime Minister 1941-1945. He was appointed Australian Minister to China in 1946. Copland returned to Canberra and on 11 May 1948 became founding Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University (1948-1953). He retained his role as an economist and began a long involvement with the Commonwealth Immigration Planning Council (1949-68) in which he gave advice concerning the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority and urged closer economic ties with the USA. In 1953 he was appointed High Commissioner to Canada. Copland died on 27 September 1971 at Kyneton, Victoria.