Nigel Lendon was a prominent figure in the Australian contemporary arts scene and was Deputy Director of the Canberra School of Art 1988-2012. He was born in Adelaide in 1944. His father, Alan Harding Lendon, was Professor of Surgery at Adelaide University which initially influenced Nigel to pursue medical studies before he shifted his focus to art. He attended the South Australian School of Art from 1964. His early works were exhibited in the 1967 Mildura Art Prize and in group exhibitions. He was one of the younger artists included in the National Gallery of Victoria's inaugural exhibition ‘The Field’ in 1968, and was recognised as one of Australia’s first Minimalist artists.

In 1972 Nigel Lendon joined the teaching faculty of the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education to teach sculpture. He was awarded a Harkness Fellowship and from 1974 to 1976 moved to New York where he became a Fellow at the Art and Language Institute. Returning to Sydney, Australia he taught at the Sydney College of the Arts from 1977-1988 and was involved in organisations including the Artworkers Union and the Media Action Group.

In 1988, Lendon was appointed Deputy Director of the Canberra School of Art which later became part of the Australian National University (ANU). He established the PhD program and continued his art practice and curation while teaching. He curated, in conjunction with Wally Caruana and Djon Mundine, ‘The Painters of the Wagilag Sisters Story 1937-1997’ at the National Gallery of Australia. In 2002, Lendon with Tim Bonyhady curated an exhibition of war rugs which then toured. The ARC Discovery Project ‘The Rugs of War’ and the 2021 Drill Hall Gallery exhibition ‘I weave what I have seen: the war rugs of Afghanistan’ followed. Nigel Lendon taught, mentored and fostered the careers of artists including ‘outsider’ artist Slim Barrie.

Retiring in 2012, Lendon returned to studio practice, exhibiting, undertaking collaborative arts projects and continuing curatorial work. Hi work is held in the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of NSW and regional galleries.

Nigel Lendon died in 2021 after a battle with brain cancer.

Dr R.M. (‘Mike’) Bourke is an agricultural scientist and geographer and is a specialist in Papua New Guinea agriculture. He has been continuously involved in research, consulting, training, and development in PNG and other Pacific Island nations since 1970 and lived in PNG for 13 years. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Agriculture and was appointed in 2015 as an Officer of the Order of Logohu by Papua New Guinea for services to PNG agriculture.
He is a specialist in food production and has been engaged on a continuous basis in PNG and elsewhere in the Pacific Islands since 1970. He has conducted fieldwork in all 93 districts in PNG, as well as in several islands in Vanuatu and Solomon Islands.

Dr Margaret Steven was a distinguished historian and academic who spent much of her career at the Australian National University.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1933, she attended Inverness Royal Academy in Scotland and Fort Street Girls' High School in Sydney. She earned a BA (Hons) from the University of Sydney in 1956 and a PhD from The Australian National University in 1963. She was recognized as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in London in 1969.

Commencing as a Research Assistant to Laurie Fitzhardinge at ANU in 1956 she took up a position as Senior Research Officer at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London from 1958 to 1959, where she contributed to the publication "A Guide to Western Manuscripts and Documents in the British Isles relating to South and South East Asia" by Oxford University Press in 1965. On return to Australia, her academic positions included Research Fellow in the Department of History at the Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS), ANU from 1959 to 1968 and from 1968 to 1975 the position of Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia. Returning to ANU, Margaret held the position of Visiting Fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS) from 1975 to 1978. She was a Research Editor for the Australian Dictionary of Biography, ANU from 1978 to 1996.
Margaret Steven contributed entries to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Biographical Dictionary of the Senate and the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Her research work particularly focused on biography and the early colonial period of Australian history.

Annette O'Neill (nee Dallimore) attended the University of Melbourne and earned a Diploma of Social Studies, and subsequently, a Bachelor of Arts. At the time of her marriage in 1967, Annette was a social worker at Larundel Psychiatric Hospital in Melbourne. Upon moving to Papua New Guinea in 1969, although unable, as a married woman, to be appointed as a contract officer to the social worker positions, Annette O'Neill found employment as a Technical Officer, Psychological Services, Public Service Board of Papua New Guinea. Later that year, she was appointed the Honorary Secretary of the Council of Social Service of Papua. This involved developing and submitting proposals on social policy to the Administrator of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea – the executive head of the colonial government of the two territories of Papua (a colony/external territory of Australia) and the Territory of New Guinea (a Trust Territory of the United Nations) that were being brought together to independence as a single country.
At this time Annette O'Neill prepared the Directory of Community Services for Papua and served the Executive Committee of the Council and conducted the international liaison. In 1970 she was appointed the Social Worker at the Port Moresby General Hospital, but kept up her involvement with the Council of Social Service of Papua. In 1972, Annette O'Neill and others set up the Papua New Guinea Social Workers’ Association. Annette O'Neill served as the Association’s first President. The Association was active in the lobbying to get a Social Work course (and Faculty) set up at the University of Papua New Guinea.
During 1973-1974, Annette O'Neill was in London, where she received a Master of Science in the Economics, Sociology and Politics of Planning. She returned to Port Moresby in 1975, where she continued in her roles with the Council for Social Services for Papua and the Papua New Guinea Social Workers’ Association. She also was a consultant to the National Planning Office of Papua New Guinea on urbanisation policy and taught occasionally at the Administrative College, Port Moresby.
Annette O'Neil returned to Australia in 1977, where she became a tutor and session teacher at University of Sydney Social Work Department and was a director of a firm of third world development consultants. She was also involved in community and Council committees and as, President of the Nicholson St Public School, was very involved in the substantial preparations for the centenary of the School (1983), which included researching and writing (with journalist Tony Stephens) a book about Balmain “Larrikin Days.”
From 1989 to 1997, Annette, although not a lawyer, was the Senior Member for New South Wales of the Social Security Appeals Tribunal. From 1997 to 1999, she was Manager, Strategic Planning and Specialist Housing Programs in the NSW Department of Housing and then from 1999 to 2002 a member of the NSW Administrative Decisions Tribunal and from 2002 until 2012 was a Senior Member of the NSW Consumer Trader Tenancy Tribunal (subsequently incorporated into the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal).
Annette was Chairman for five years of the Centennial and Moore Park Trust. Her period of office involved the planning for and delivery of a number of events of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games that took place took part in or used Centennial Park and the 2001 celebration of centenary of the inauguration of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1 January 1901 that also took place in Centennial Park. Annette was awarded a Centennial Medal.
Annette was also a Governor of the Law Foundation of NSW, a member then Chair of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and also a member then Chair of Shelter (NSW). She died in 2022.

Walter Niel Gunson, known Niel Gunson, was a pioneering historian of the Pacific who completed his PHD at the Australian National University in Professor Jim Davidson’s Department of Pacific History, 1955-1958. He was born and raised in Gippsland, Victoria. He was a Fellow in the Department of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, 1962-1993, and held a visiting fellowship after retiring in 1993.

Gunson is recognised for his ethnographic research in the history of Protestant missions to the Pacific Islands and Polynesia in the 19th century. His later research focused on genealogy and kinship studies in the Pacific. His other interests included European, Australian Indigenous and local history. He owned a large library and archive collection which he shared with others.

Gunson mentored at least 20 PHD scholars. The Journal of Pacific History created the Gunson Prize in 2012 for scholars researching Pacific history. He was a foundational member of The Journal of Pacific History, and in 1975 helped establish the journal Aboriginal History. He worked for the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau. He established the first Tongan history workshop at the ANU in 1987 which resulted in the formation of the Tongan History Association (currently the Tonga Research Association) in 1989.

Father D. Kevin Twomey was a Sacred Heart missionary in Papua New Guinea for many years. He first arrived in Papua New Guinea in 1944. His missionary work took him to Sideia, Basilaki, Milne Bay, Nimowa (Nimoa) and the Trobriand Islands in Eastern Papua, Chanel College and Malaguna in East New Britain and Tabwiroa College in Kiribati. He spent seventeen years in Nimowa (Nimoa). He moved to the Northern Territory in 1983, working in parishes around Darwin for many years. He died on 23 August 1993, aged 77 years.

The Stock Exchange of Melbourne was established in 1884 from competing exchanges that began in the 1860s. In 1987, it was absorbed into a new national body, the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX).

Melbourne Stock Exchange Archives at the University of Melbourne
Minutes 1889-1922
Letter book 1893 - 1895
Official lists and quotations 1870 - 1960
Assorted Files 1890 - 1950s
Monthly Diary 1952 - 1962
Secretary’s Correspondence 1955 - 1963
Stock Exchange Official Record 1934 - 1968 (bound by year)
Newspaper cuttings 1906 - 1923
Applications for Listing 1897 - 1926
Listed Company Files 1918 - 1962
Listed Company Files 1964 - 1986
Delisted Company Files 1964-1992

Grant McCall was an anthropologist who focused his research on Rapanui and Eastern Polynesia. He received his BA in Anthropology from the University of California (Berkeley) in 1966, and his MA from San Franciso State College in 1968. During his MA, he studied Basque migrant communities in North and South America. He then spent three months continuing that field work in a Spanish fishing village in 1969. He received a Diploma of Social Anthropology and Bachelor of Letters from the University of Oxford, 1970-1971. From April 1972 to January 1974, he completed field work in Rapanui (Easter Island), which led to his PhD thesis at the Australian National University, Reaction to disaster: continuity and change in Rapanui social organisation (available online: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/128801). He was awarded his PhD at the Australian National University in 1977. He worked extensively in Rapanui with fieldwork trips from 1972-1975, 1984-1986, 2001-2002, and in Chile while working on Rapanui- related matters in 2008. He conducted fieldwork in Tahiti, particularly among expatriate Rapanui in 1974, 1975, 1984, and 1985. McCall also undertook fieldwork in Aitutaki and Mangaia, Cook Islands (1988, 1989/1990); Freeport Mine, West Papua Province, Indonesia (January 2011) and Timbuktu, Mali (January 2012).
Grant McCall was appointed to several positions at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) from 1976 until 2009 including the Director of the Centre for South Pacific Studies from 1987-1992 and 1999-2009. In 2011 he was appointed an associate of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sydney. In 2014 he was made a Distinguished Professor, World Environment & Island Institute, Jeju National University.
Grant McCall was active in a number of organisations, notably the founding convenor and later Vice-President of the Australian Association for the Advancement of Pacific Studies (AAAPS) and serving as President of the International Small Islands Studies Association (ISISA) from 1998-2014.

Macquarie Textiles was originally formed under the name Amalgamated Textiles (Australia) Ltd. in Albury, NSW, in March 1923. The organisation's intention was to establish three woollen mills in the NSW area which could undertake the full process of woollen and worsted cloth manufacturing under one company. The Albury woollen mill began operating in 1925, followed by another in Orange, NSW in 1926, and the third in Goulburn, NSW in 1929. In 1956, the company changed its name to Macquarie Worsteds Ltd., closed the Goulburn mill, and moved their head office from Sydney, NSW, to Orange. Ascot Investments Pty. Limited took over Macquarie Worsteds in 1982, changing the name to Macquarie Textiles Pty. Limited. In 1987, the Macquarie group became subsidiaries of General Investments Australia Ltd. The Orange mill closed in 1989. By 1992, the company had acquired Foster Valley in Geelong, Aweave, John Vicars & Co., Warrnambool Woollen, and Onkaparinga Woollen Company, and in 1994, the organisation's name was changed to Macquarie Textiles Group Ltd. to better reflect their recent acquisitions. In 2013, it was announced that the Albury factory would be closed in favour of importing materials from China and India, with only the local warehouse left in operation. As of 2024, the business continues to operate under Macquarie Textiles Pty. Limited in Albury, NSW, after ceasing the Macquarie Textiles Group Ltd. name in 2021.

Onkaparinga Woollen Company originated in Hahndorf, SA in 1869 by two German brothers, Heinrich and Edward Kramm before moving to Lobethal, SA. The first mill, Lobethal Tweed Factory, opened in 1872, but experienced a troubled history with several closures and take-overs until 1883 when it reopened as the South Australian Woollen Factory. This venture proved successful for many years, and eventually the company renamed to Onkaparinga Woollen Mill Company in 1928. The Onkaparinga brand of wool blankets became iconic in Australian households, and gained worldwide recognition during the country's post-WWII economic and wool export boom. The company was owned under the Bardak Pty. Ltd. company, and traded as Onkaparinga Textiles Limited prior to being taken over by Macquarie Worsteds Limited in 1983. The company is also associated with the names Macquarie Woollen Textiles Pty. Ltd., and Macquarie Woollen Company Pty. Ltd. The Onkaparinga Woollen Mill closed in 1993 as production became outsourced. As of 2024, the Onkaparinga brand continues under the ownership of William A. McNeil & Co. Pty. Ltd.

Professor Harold Crouch is a scholar of Indonesian politics and founding director of the International Crisis Group office in Jakarta. Born in Melbourne, 1940, read political science at the University Melbourne before studying at the University of Bombay for Masters on Indian trade unions in the early 1960s. He was one of first Australians at an Asian university for higher degrees.

His PhD, written under Herbert Feith at Monash University and completed in 1975, was published in 1978 as The Army and Politics in Indonesia. It is regarded as a 'milestone' in the study of Indonesia’s New Order. While undertaking his PhD, he taught political science at the University of Indonesia 1968-1971.

After marrying Malaysian historian Khasnoor Johan in 1973, Crouch became Senior Lecturer at the National University of Malaysia, 1976–1985 and 1988-1990. He taught at the University of the Philippines 1983-1984.

In 1991, he joined the Australian National University as a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Political and Social Change in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. He was appointed Professor in 2002 and retired in 2005.

Crouch founded the Jakarta office of the International Crisis Group in 2000-2001. Professor Crouch is an Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University.

His career has included a number of significant monographs in the study of Indonesia and Southeast Asia, including The Army and Politics in Indonesia (1978), Domestic Political Structures and Regional Economic Cooperation in Southeast Asia (1984), Government and Society in Malaysia (1996), and Political Reform in Indonesia after Soeharto (2010).

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).

Professor Anthony Reid is a New Zealand-born historian of Southeast Asia. He received a PhD from Cambridge University for research examining the power struggles in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, in the late 19th century and he extended this study into a book 'The Blood of the People' on the national and social revolutions in that region 1945-49. He is best known for his two volume book 'The Age of Commerce', developed during his time at the Australian National University in Canberra. His later work includes a return to Sumatra where he strongly advocated a historical basis for the separate identity of Aceh. Reid was Professor of Southeast Asia History at University of Malaya (1965–70), then Fellow (1970-74), Senior Fellow (1974-88) and Professor of Southeast Asian History (1989-99) at the Australian National University. He was the founding director of the Southeast Asia Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 1999–2002, and then founding director of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore 2002-07 and Professor of Southeast Asian History and Research Leader there 2007-09. He was the founding convenor of the Asian Studies Association of Australia 1975-76 and President 1996-98. Professor Reid is an Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University.

Sarah Walls earned a first-class honours degree in French, and also studied law. She spent 15 years as a journalist, including three years in the United Kingdom, working for the BBC and commercial radio in London, and two based in New Caledonia covering the French South Pacific for the Australian press.
Sarah worked for various Australian media organisations during her career as a print and television journalist, including as a reporter for the ABC's Four Corners program, and a feature writer for The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald newspapers. In 1983, she was awarded the United Nations Association of Australia’s Media Peace Prize, and a Gold Citation – Press, for her work in The Australian discussing action necessary to halt the threat of nuclear conflict, and her work on other issues relating to peace and resolution of international, national and domestic conflict.
Following an incident in the late 1980s which left Sarah with progressive physical disability, she gained her translator’s accreditation in 2002 and spent the next 20 years working as an independent French translator.

Freda Brown was a political activist, trade unionist and feminist. She was an ardent supporter of women's rights, peace, and anti-apartheid movements in Australia and Internationally. A member of the Communist Party of Australia, she was also involved in establishing and leading women's organisations including the Union of Australian Women and the Women's International Democratic Foundation. Brown travelled widely in service of her political causes. In 1977, she was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. She was honoured by the South African government in 2004 for her efforts against apartheid.
Brown was married to Bill Brown from 1943 until his death in 1992. She is the mother of former Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon.

Nellie Simpson was an activist and trade unionist, advocating for women's rights and peace. Simpson emigrated to Australia from Lancashire, England in 1928, living in Queensland before settling in Sydney. In the 1940s, she joined the Darlinghurst branch of the Australian Labor Party where she met campaigner Jessie Street, cementing her feminist and socialist ideologies. She spoke frequently about her political views on 2KY Radio Sydney from 1949-1965.

Simpson was a member of the Australian Labor Party, running multiple times for ALP executive boards, State and Federal parliament seats. Simpson's status as a member of the Federated Clerks' Union inhibited her success in these pursuits, as the union was accused as serving as front for the Communist Party of Australia. She was eventually elected to the New South Wales Australian Labor Party State Executive in 1969, but left the party shortly after, citing disillusionment by the shift from more socialist to centrist objectives.

She was awarded a certificate of appreciation from Queensland State Premier Peter Battie for her service to the ALP and the labour movement before her death.

Born in Scotland, Donald Denoon received a BA (Natal), South Africa and a PhD from Cambridge University. He lectured in history at Makerere University, Uganda and at Ibadan University, Nigeria. He was Professor of History at the University of Papua New Guinea 1972 - 1981 and Professor of Pacific History at the Australian National University 1990-2010. He is Emeritus Professor and Visiting Fellow, Division of Pacific and Asian History, Research School of Pacific Studies.Professor Denoon was general editor of the Cambridge History of the Pacific Islanders (Cambridge University Press, 1997).

He has written extensively on Australia’s relations with Pacific countries as well as on Papua New Guinea. His publications include Getting Under the Skin: The Bougainville Copper Agreement and the Creation of the Panguna Mine (with Philippa Mein-Smith and Marivic Wyndham; Melbourne University Press, 2000), A History of Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific (Blackwell, 2000), and Public Health in Papua New Guinea: Medical Possibility and Social Constraint, 1884–1984 (with Kathleen Dugan and Leslie Marshall; Cambridge University Press, 1989).

The Flight Stewards' Association was formed in 1958 for male members, existing in parallel to the Airline Hostesses' Association for female members that was formed in 1956. In 1984, the Flight Stewards' Association became the Australian International Cabin Crew Association and in 1992 amalgamated with the Australian Flight Attendants' Association (previously the Airline Hostesses' Association) to become the Flight Attendants' Association of Australia.

The Australian Flight Attendants' Association was previously known as the Airline Hostesses' Association and changed its name when Qantas, the only international airline operating in Australia at the time, replaced 'Hostesses' with 'Female Flight Service Attendants'. It had an Overseas Branch to represent international cabin crew which operated in parallel to the Australian International Cabin Crew Association which had been renamed from the Flight Stewards' Association. In 1992 the two unions amalgamated to become the Flight Attendants' Association of Australia.

Wallace Raymond ('Wal') Ambrose was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1933. He began his education as an artist, at Seddon Technical College, followed by the Elam School of Art, at the time a part of Auckland University College, where he earned a Diploma of Fine Arts in 1953. He was awarded the Postgraduate Diploma of the Auckland Teachers College in 1955, for the art teachers' course.
A chance encounter that year with members of the University Archaeological Society summer excavation season saw Wal begin what would become a lifelong interest in archaeology. During the following year, Wal continued his involvement with the Society, and in 1956, the Department of Anthropology hired him as photographer and cartographer.
Wal Ambrose became the organiser and site supervisor for all of Jack Golson's excavations during his time at the University of Auckland. He also participated in excavations with Roger Green and Wilfred Shawcross in New Zealand during between 1957 and 1963. He directed the departmental excavations at the Kauri Point site in 1961-1962. He conducted three seasons of salvage work recording rock art for New Zealand National Historic Places Trust.
Ambrose also was a member and served in a variety of offices for the University Archaeological Society and the New Zealand Archaeological Association, including as editor of the quarterly NZAA newsletter. During this time Ambrose also earned his university degree at the University of Auckland, in anthropology and geology.
In 1963, he joined the then Department of Anthropology and Sociology in the Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University as a Research Assistant where Jack Golson had recently accepted a position. Ambrose completed a Diploma of Archaeological Conservation at the London Institute of Archaeology in 1965. Ambrose was a pioneer in the field of archaeological conservation in Australia, writing many articles and manuals on the deterioration and conservation of materials, and playing a leading role in the establishment of the Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material. When the new department of Prehistory was established in the Research School at ANU, Wal Ambrose’s position was reclassified as Research Officer in Conservation and Experimental Archaeology in 1966. At the same time, realising the need to stabilise artifacts, the Department of Prehistory established a Conservation section, and remains the only archaeology department in Australia to maintain a dedicated conservator on staff. In 1970 he was seconded to the Anthropology Department of the University of Papua New Guinea. In 1982, his position at the Australian National University was that of Experimental Archaeologist, which would continue until his retirement in 1998, at which point he became a Visiting Fellow of the Department of Archaeology and Natural History.
Wal Ambrose was greatly involved in the ANU excavations at Kuk, led by Jack Golson, now a UNESCO World Heritage site for establishing the independent development of agriculture in Papua New Guinea. Ambrose created methods for freeze drying the wooden artifacts being excavated from the Kuk swamp, a process that was successful in maintaining the original form of the artifacts, including marks of manufacture and use. His revolutionary treatment has now been widely adopted and recognised by the Cellulose, Paper and Textile Division of the American Chemicals Society and the Archaeological Materials Working Group of the International Council of Museums. Ambrose also developed and patented his invention for a temperature and relative humidity monitoring device for long-term soil monitoring, which was used to a great extent at Kuk and on many ANU-led excavations throughout the region, and humorously and fondly known throughout the department as “Wall’s balls” for their spherical shape.
Ambrose’s experiments with freeze drying technology led to expeditions to Antarctica, to test freeze drying without a vacuum chamber in dry, cold conditions. Ambrose’s venturi system, which allowed for air suction, was proved a success and was later patented. His findings have led to different approaches to the conservation of Antarctic heritage buildings. Ambrose patented his invention for a temperature and relative humidity monitoring device, which was
Ambrose also contributed greatly to obsidian studies. He amassed a large collection of obsidian samples, which were then tested using emission spectography. Ambrose collaborated with scientists from the Australian Atomic Energy Commission to develop PIXE/PIGME analytical system to differentiate the composition and original location of the obsidian samples. The PIXE/PIGME system became standard for obsidian study, and Wal Ambrose’s collected obsidian samples became a reference file for the composition of Pacific obsidians based on that system. Ambrose was also at the forefront of obsidian dating, especially in hydration dating.
Wal Ambrose was involved in many excavations during his long career at the Australian National University including: Northern Territory (1963); Dorset (University of London, 1964-1965); various locations in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, including Kuk (1966, 1968); Kauri Point, NZ (1967); Anir Island, New Ireland, PNG (1970-1971); Kuk, PNG (1972); survey of all known obsidian source sites in Papua New Guinea (1974); Admiralty Islands (1977), Lou and Hus Island, Admiralty Island (1978); Lou, Baluan, and Manus, Admiralty Islands (1981); Manus, New Ireland, New Britain (1984); Lou Island, Manus and Boduna Island, Talasea (1985); Baluan Island, Manus, and Schouten Islands (1987); Pamwak rockshelter, Manus Island (1989, 1990); Antarctica, experimental freeze-drying project (1990/1991); Assessment of historic building preservation at Wilkes Station Antarctica (1994).
After retiring as Experimental Archaeologist with the Australian National University department of Prehistory, Wal Ambrose became a visiting fellow of the new Archaeology and Natural History department, and later pursued his PhD. His Doctor of Letters was awarded by the Australian National University in 2006. Wal Ambrose died in January 2024.

Jack Golson AO was an archaeologist who did extensive fieldwork in the Pacific region. He studied history and archaeology at Cambridge University. From 1954 until he joined the ANU in 1961, he was a lecturer of archaeology at Auckland University. In 1969, Golson was appointed as the inaugural Professor of Prehistory at the ANU. He led the department until his retirement in 1991.

Allan Flinders Gow was born in Perth in 1915. He joined the Government Secretary's Office of the Mandated Territory in 1936 and in 1937 had postings in Rabaul, Kokopo and eventually the district office at Wau, Papua New Guinea. From 1940-1944 he was enlisted in the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) and joined the 2/25 Infantry Battalion of the 7th Division. In 1944 Gow was transferred to the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit (ANGAU) as a lieutenant serving as a Patrol Officer and Assistant District Officer in areas such as Goilala and West Papua. He was awarded a Military Cross in 1945 and in 1946 rejoined the civil administration of Papua New Guinea with major contributions in South-West Bougainville, Madang, the Rai Coast and Manus. In 1954 he was appointed District Officer and District Commissioner in Sohano and Buka Island, Bougainville; New Ireland. He was Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Native Affairs in Port Moresby and from 1960s held posts in Southern Highlands at Mendi and Eastern Highlands at Goroka. From 1960s-1972 he was posted to Manus District and retired in 1972. Gow died in 1997.

The Gowrie Foundation established in 1943 to maintain research scholarships in perpetual memory of those Australian men and women who gave their lives for their country in the Second World War. Established in the name of Australia's 10th Governor-General, the scholarship was "for graduates who were members of the forces during WWII or are descendants of such persons. Special consideration given to lineal descendants of a member of the forces who died as a result of any occurrence which happened during his period of enlistment". The first trustees were Sir John Latham, Sir Robert Garran and Sir Claude Reading.

The scholarship was awarded for 1 or 2 years to graduates of Australian universities to support study at universities or other research institutions, either in Australia or overseas.

The trust was dissolved in with ANU managing the scholarship from 2011. It is now known as the Gowrie Bursary.

James (Jim) Specht was a PhD scholar in the Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University in 1965. He was part of an archaeological group which carried out fieldwork studying Lapita pottery in Watom Island, near Raboul, and in Talasea, on the mid-north coast of New Britain. He was awarded a Ph.D for his thesis: Prehistoric and modern pottery industries of Buka Island, T.P.N.G. (1969). Specht joined the Australian Museum in June 1971. From 1991, he was Head of the Division of Anthropology and was Chief Scientist from 1997-2000 before retiring in November 2000.

The first patent application by the newly formed partnership Waters and Hart was filed in May 1859. The dominant partner was Edward Waters (1937 - 1917) who arrived in the Colony of Victoria from London in 1855. Subequent related businesses included Edwd. Waters and Sons (sic). Branch Offices we established in Sydney in the 1880s and Brisbane in the 1890s. The branches eventually became separate businesses.

On 1 May 1989, the company changed its name to Watermark Patent and Trademark Attorneys moved to 290 Burwood Rd, Hawthorn Victoria 3122.

In 2019 Watermark was fully integrated into intellectual property service provider Griffith Hack.

In 1835 John Tooth, who had arrived in New South Wales in 1828, and Charles Newnham opened the Kent Brewery in Sydney. In June 1888 Tooth & Company became a publicly listed company with capital of 900,000 pounds. In 1905 the Company acquired the New South Wales Malting Company's works at Mittagong. Over the next two decades the company acquired the Maitland Brewery (1913), the Castlemaine Brewery and Wood Brothers, Newcastle (1921); breweries in Wagga Wagga, Narrandera and Goulburn and in 1929 they acquired Resch's Limited. In 1977 the company acquired Wright, Heaton and Company and Penfolds Wines Limited and in 1978 Courage Brewery Limited. Tooth and Company was acquired by Carlton and United Breweries in 1983. The company's extensive collection of hotel properties were sold off from 1990. The company was delisted from the Australian Securities Exchange in 2010 after not having traded for many years. carlton and United Breweres were bought by Asahi Beverages in 2020.

Ernest Richard (ER) Scott was born in Geelong. Victoria, in 1899. Between 1924 and 1919. He worked for the Manfred Pastoral Company in outback New South Wales.

ER Scott lived in a workers camp while maintaining artesian bore Eureka Well. He also travelled to the homesteads of Manfred, Til Til, Kilfera and Clare stations.

ER Scott died in Geelong in 1971.

Barbara Curthoys was born in Grafton, New South Wales, on 21 June 1924 to John Archibald and Eda McCallum (nee Lockwood).

In 1953 she became a full-time Communist Party of Australia Activist.

Curthoys joined the Newcastle Branch of the Union of Australian Women in 1954 and was secretary of the Branch between 1954-1960. Curthoys was elected to the organisation’s national body in 1960, 1963 and 1970. In the 1960s, she also served as secretary of the Newcastle Trades Hall Council Equal Pay and Aboriginal Advancement committees. She was also a founding member of the Newcastle Peace Forum.

Elspeth Young was a geographer who spent many years studying Indigenous communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea, focusing on land management issues facing Indigenous peoples.
She graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1963, with MA (Honours) in Geography, with her thesis: Glenelg: a study of the developments in the economy of a West Highland District. After completing a Diploma of Education she taught geography and mathematics for a number of years in the UK and later in Trinidad. She returned to the UK to a position lecturing in economic geography at the Edinburgh College of Commerce in 1969. In 1971, she was appointed a Research Assistant and Tutor in the Geography Department of the University of Papua New Guinea. At the University of Papua New Guinea, she also pursued an additional degree, earning a MA for her thesis: Population Mobility in the Kainantu Area. Under the direction of Gerard Ward and Diana Howlett, she pursued her PhD at the Australian National University, which was awarded for her thesis: Simbu and New Ireland Migration (1977). In 1978, she switched her focus from PNG to Australia and began a study of Willowra station, north of Alice Springs. She became the first geographer to have worked on Northern Territory Land Claims, contributing to the successful claims to Ti Tree and Mt Allen (1980–85). Elspeth Young became a Research Fellow in Demography, ANU, (1980–1981) and Senior Research Fellow (1982–1985) in the North Australia Research Unit of the ANU. In 1985, she joined the Department of Geography and Oceanography at University College, University of New South Wales, Australian Defense Force Academy (1985-1994), where she would become an associate professor. In 1994 Elspeth returned to the ANU as Director of the Graduate Studies in Environmental Management and Development program. She stepped down from the position in 1999 and became a Reader at the program. She died in the UK in 2002. She made a bequest to the ANU in the form of the Elspeth Young Memorial Grant (https://study.anu.edu.au/scholarships/find-scholarship/elspeth-young-memorial-grant), supporting Indigenous Australian undergraduate and graduate students at the Australian National University.

Glen Fingleton was born in 1911 at Waverley, Sydney, New South Wales. He was the son of James Fingleton (1876-1920), tram driver and Labor politician, and Belinda May (Mary), née Webb (1878-1955). He was variously employed as a messenger in the Postmaster-General’s Department, civil servant, clerk, then union secretary.

Fingleton opposed efforts to ban the Communist party during the 1951 referendum. He joined a 1952 trade union delegation to the Soviet Union as a Waterside Workers Federation (WWF) representative thenclashed with the WWF Sydney Branch by publishing a report of the visit that was critical of the Soviet Union.

Fingleton died in 1965 at Glebe Island.

David Buchanan SC was admitted to practise as a solicitor in Sydney in 1975. He was called to the NSW Bar in 1977 and appointed Senior Counsel (SC) in 1997. His area of practice is criminal law. He has been involved for many years in the gay community response to HIV/AIDS in Australia and generally in the Indo-Pacific region. He has a particular interest in the role of the criminal law and of public health interventions in the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Francis Barrymore (Barry) Smith completed an MA from University of Melbourne and PhD from Cambridge University. He joined the Department of History, Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University as Senior Fellow from August 1966 and was promoted to Professorial Fellow in 1975. After retiring in 1997, he continued as a visiting fellow. Smith has published books concerned with British and Australian social and medical history.

Mervyn Meggitt served in the Royal Australian Navy during World War II before enrolling at the University of Sydney, where he graduated with Double Honours. Meggitt's first fieldwork was with the Walbiri in Central Australia. He published Desert People based on his Walbiri study. His next field work location was in the Papua New Guinea Highlands, studying the Enga. Between 1955 and 1961 he spent 21 months in Papua New Guinea. During this time he was also a lecturer at the University of Sydney. Between 1962 and 1965 he took up a fellowship at Manchester University, followed by visiting professorships in the USA. In 1965 he returned to the United States as a professor at the University of Michigan. In the 1967 he moved to a position at Queens College, City University of New York, where he remained until his retirement as Distinguished Professor Emeritus in 1992. He made his last visit to the Highlands in 1982.

The Jabal Indigenous Australian Centre provided a meeting place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students studying at the Australian National University in Canberra, as well as student support services, recruitment and exhibitions. The Centre opened in May 1989 as the Aboriginal Liaison office and Students Support Centre. Bob Randall was the Centre's first Aboriginal Liaison Officer. By 1993, it became known as the Jabal Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Centre with Ms P Kemp-Elliott appointed as Director. In 2012 Dr Anne Martin was appointed Director and the Centre was re- named Tjabal Indigenous Higher Education Centre.

Emeritus Professor John White, AO CMG FRS FAA FAIP FRACI, studied chemistry at the University of Sydney before earning a doctorate at the University of Oxford. He returned to Australia in 1985 to take up the position of Professor of Physical & Theoretical Chemistry at the Australian National University.

Alan Gordon Thorne was born in Neutral Bay, Sydney, on 1 March 1939, and was educated at North Sydney Boys High. He started his working life as a cadet journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald in 1957. He graduated from the University of Sydney in 1960 after majoring in zoology and anthropology. While studying for his PhD at the University of Sydney, (awarded 1975), he was a research fellow in the Archaeology Department in the Institute of Advanced Studies (now the Department of Archaeology and Natural History, in the College of Asia and the Pacific) at The Australian National University. He held the position of Senior Fellow there until his retirement.

Kondelea (Della) Xenodohos (later known as Della Elliott) was born in Melbourne in 1917. After leaving school at the age of 14, she graduated from business college as a typist but found it difficult to gain regular paid work. She worked for a while with the International Labour Defence before gaining paid work with the Friends of the Soviet Union and the Militant Minority Movement.

In the 1940s Della was a delegate to the Labour Council of NSW and the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and passionately pursued the issue of equal pay for women. This included working as a member of the Australian Women's Charter Committee alongside feminist activist Jessie Street.

Della and Laurie divorced in 1945 and she began working for the Waterside Workers Federation (WWF). Here she met Seaman's Union of Australia (SUA) leader Eliot V. Elliott. They were partners for the rest of their lives, eventually marrying in 1982.

Della began work at the SUA in 1955 as an administrator in the federal office, keeping meticulous records and facilitating a number of industrial campaigns, as well as editing the Seamen's Journal. Della eventually retired from the SUA in 1988, four years after Eliot's death.

Della was a strong supporter of the League for Democracy in Greece and the Union of Australian Women. She was also passionate about Indigenous issues and founded a scholarship at the University of Sydney for female Indigenous students.

Della Elliott died in Sydney on 2 October 2011 at the age of 94.

Eliot Valens Elliott was born Victor Emmanuel Elliott in New Zealand in 1902. He joined the Federated Seamen’s Union of Australasia (FSUA), later the Seamen’s Union of Australia (SUA) at the age of 17 and worked stoking boilers. He quickly earned a reputation as a tough delegate focused on campaigning for better working conditions. Elliott came to prominence during the 1935 seamen’s dispute as Assistant-Secretary of the Sydney strike committee and was elected Queensland Branch Secretary of the FSUA. By late 1924 his sailing records showed a change of name to Eliot V Elliott.

He became General Secretary of the FSUA in 1941 and in 1942 served as the seamen’s representative to the Maritime Industry Commission. He was also active in the international labour movement, sponsoring union recruitment and organisation among Australian and visiting seamen and promoting collective action by Chinese, Greek and Indonesian seamen. Although he led the SUA in their opposition to the Korean and Vietnam Wars, he generally relied on negotiation skills rather than engaging in costly strike action. He was a fierce opponent and defended the rights of SUA members in bitter battles with BHP and the Utah Development Co.

In 1949 Elliott joined the CPA’s central committee and was appointed vice-president of the maritime section of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), which had strong backing from the USSR. Although the Australian Council of Trade Unions withdrew from the WFTU that same year, the SUA didn’t disaffiliate until September 1952. Elliott maintained a long-term pro-Moscow view, which contributed to his removal from the central committee of the CPA in 1969, and him joining the new Socialist Party of Australia in 1971.

Elliott's long-time partner was prominent trade unionist and activist Kondelea Xenedohos (more commonly known as Della Elliott), whom he met while both were working for the WWF.

After 37 years as General Secretary, he retired from the SUA in 1978. He died in Sydney on 26 November 1984, survived by Della and his son.

The Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association (AHHA) was established in 1946 by Dr. Herbert Schlink (later Sir Herbert) as the Australian Hospital Association (AHA). The AHA joined the International Hospital Federation in 1949, and changed their name to the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association in 2006.

Margaret and James Tedder lived in the Solomon Islands from 1952 until 1974. During the last years of her residence there, after the children went to Australian schools, Margaret did a lot of bush touring carrying out research on plants used by the Islanders for medicines, cures and other purposes. Most of Margaret Tedder's plant identifications were checked in the now defunct Forest Herbarium where she lodged duplicates of the plants.

William (Bill) Adrian McGrath completed an Engineering, Surveying Cadetship in the Public Works Department of Western Australia from 1950-1953, and joined the Administration of the Territory of Papua New Guinea as a Cadet Patrol Officer in April 1953. In 1955 he was promoted to Patrol Officer at Erave Patrol Post in the Southern Highland Province. In 1958 McGrath attended a Long Course at ASOPA and in 1959 was appointed as Patrol Officer [Lands] at Konedobu Headquarters. He undertook land buying assignments for the PNG Administration in the Central, New Britain and Northern Districts. From 1961-1965 McGrath worked in the Lands Department before becoming Director of Lands and Surveys of the US Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands at Saipan. From 1971-1975 McGrath was the Land Department Manager in C Brewer and Co. Ltd in Hawaii. From 1975 to 1979 he was appointed the founding General Manager of the Native Land Development Corporation. From 1980 to 1984 McGrath worked as a Land Consultant to the then New Hebrides Condominium Government, continuing in the position after Vanuatu gained its independence. From 1984 to 1997 he was Land Supervisor with Chevron Niugini as the operator of the PNG Kutubu Petroleum Development Project. In 1984 Bill McGrath set up the Pacific Book House as a mail-order bookshop, which he ran intermittently until being able to devote more time to the business in 2010.

Joan Marjorie Rochester was born in Victoria in 1931. She married Cedric Coxsedge in 1953 and had two sons and a daughter.
She became a professional artist in the 1960s and held four exhibitions of pen and wash drawings of historic buildings as well as undertaking a commission for the Builders' Labourers' Federation drawing Green Bans buildings around Australia in 1975.
As well as being an accomplished artist, Joan was a committed activist and politician. As a member of the Save Our Sons Movement which opposed conscription for the Vietnam War, she went to jail in 1971 for anti-conscription activities. She campaigned against the Croatian terrorist movement Ustashi in the early 1970s, opposed secret service organisations and was founding Chairman of the Committee for the Abolition of Political Police in 1973.
A member of the Australian Labor Party from 1967, Coxsedge contested unsuccessfully the Legislative Assembly seat of Balwyn in 1973 and stood for pre-selection in Richmond in 1976 against the Leader of the Opposition, Clyde Holding. She eventually became the first Labor woman to be elected to the Victorian Legislative Council as the Member for Melbourne West Province in July 1979 and served until 1992. While in office she wrote and produced the newsletter Hard Facts for Hard Times from her Footscray office, in which she offered a left view of current local, national and international events.
Coxsedge was involved with a large number of community groups and projects. She served as a Board Member of the Footscray Community Arts Centre (1980-98) and Chair of Board (1990-93); Board Member of West Theatre (1989-90) and Chair of End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (1993-98).

James Patrick Sinclair was born in Dubbo NSW on 18 April 1928. He attended Dubbo High School, Sydney Grammar School and the Australian School of Pacific Administration (ASOPA) in Sydney. In November 1947, he Joined the Department of District Services and Native Affairs, Administration of Papua New Guinea. After attending an orientation course at the Australian School of Pacific Administration he proceeded to Papua New Guinea in August 1948 as a cadet patrol officer. He also attended the No 4 Long Course at ASOPA in 1953 - 1954. From 1948 to 1975 he served successively on many stations as a patrol officer, assistant district officer, deputy district commissioner and district commissioner. He was the last Australian District Commissioner of the Eastern Highlands District, 1969-1974.

During his service James Sinclair conducted extensive exploratory and pacification patrols in Morobe and Southern Highlands Districts. He opened the station of Koroba in 1955, Lake Kopiago base camp in 1956 and explored the then Uncontrolled area to the Strickland River until late 1958. He married Janece Marie McGrath in January 1959 and had three children. He subsequently served in charge of the Wau, Finschhafen and Lae Sub-Districts before moving to the Eastern Highlands in 1968.

James Sinclair retired in August 1975 following Independence in Papua New Guinea. He returned to his previous hobby of writing on Papua New Guinea history, which became a full-time occupation and he has since published more than 30 books. His first book, ‘Behind the Ranges’¸ was published in 1966 and told of his exploratory work in Morobe and the Southern Highlands. In 2013, several publications edited by James Sinclair were ready for publication, including publications about Peter Fox, A Lloyd Hurrell and John Middleton. Jim died on 9 October 2017.

Honours: James Sinclair has been awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1992; the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the Australian National University in 1999; and a Companion, Order of the Star of Melanesia (PNG) in 2008.

The Peel River Land and Mineral Company (Peel Company) was formed in 1853 after gold was discovered on the banks of the Peel River. It was established by Act of Parliament in London to purchase the Peel River Estate (Goonoo Goonoo) from the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo). The gold mining activity was short lived. The Peel Company then concentrated on working sheep and cattle on the property. It also made early ventures into Queensland: Cashmere (near St George 1861-1873); Corona and Nile (near Winton 1875-1881) and Currawhillingi (NSW/Qld border 1881-1918) as well as Eagle Grange (NSW 1898-1918); Moorlands station (Tamworth); Avon Downs (NT); Mt Alfred and Mt Margaret stations (Qld). From 1849 the Peel Company laid out town lots in (south) Tamworth. From the 1870s farm lots were laid out in several subdivisions around the town. In 1909, 88,518 acres were resumed by the NSW Government for closer settlement; a further 17,500 acres in 1938 and 18,150 acres in 1952. The Goonoo Goonoo homestead block was sold in 1985.

The first General Superintendent of the Peel Company was Philip Gidley King (1854-1904) who was succeeded by his son, G B G King (1904-1910) and grandson, G M G King (1910-1930). They were followed by J F Holloway (1930-1932). From 1932 the AACo and the Peel River Land & Mineral Company were jointly managed in Australia. The companies together purchased a number of properties including Caldervale (near Tambo, Qld) in 1934 and the Coonamble Properties (Sandcycamp, Pillicawarrina and Narraway, NSW) in 1948.

In 1959 the AACo acquired the whole share issue of the Peel River Land & Mineral Company and the company was delisted from the London stock exchange.

The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo or The Company) was formed in London in April 1824. Its purpose was to raise fine woolled sheep and sell wool on the London market. The formation of the Company was supported by an Act of Parliament and a Royal Charter. Its directors and major shareholders included directors of the Bank of England, the East India Company and Members of Parliament; with assigned convicts given the roles of shepherding and general labour. The Company’s initial land grant was one million acres in New South Wales plus two thousand acres in Newcastle. After some uncertainty the land, in the colony, was in three blocks: 464,640 acres between Port Stephens and the Manning River (Port Stephens Estate), 249,600 acres on the Liverpool Plains west of Willow Tree (Warrah) and 313,298 acres at the Peel River south of Tamworth (Goonoo Goonoo). The AACo operated in four major NSW locations during the nineteenth century – Port Stephens, Tamworth, Quirindi, and Newcastle – and from the last quarter of the century also in Queensland and eventually in Northern Australia. Its interests expanded to include wool, wheat, cattle, coal and land sales.

Within a year of its formation the AACo also became involved in coal mining at Newcastle, taking over the government’s operations there. After protracted negotiations the Company’s first pit was opened in 1831.The discovery of gold in New South Wales on the Company’s Peel Estate led to the formation of the Peel River Land and Mineral Company in 1854. Between 1825 and 1862 the AACo, with the Peel River Land and Mineral Company, brought from Europe to New South Wales over 700 men to work either at the colliery in Newcastle or on the extensive pastoral estates at Port Stephens, Tamworth and the Liverpool Plains. The new arrivals were managers, skilled mechanics, shepherds, miners and labourers. The first group of employees was managed by the Company’s first Agent, Robert Dawson (Agent, 1824-1828). Dawson’s successors included Sir Edward Parry (Commissioner, 1830-1834); Henry Dumaresq (Commissioner, 1834-1838); Phillip Parker King (Commissioner, 1839-1849); followed by several General Superintendents with Jesse Gregson, the Company’s longest serving General Superintendent from 1875-1905.

In 1864 the AACo began the development of the Warrah Estate for sheep breeding, investing extensively in wells, bores and fencing. The AACo purchased Corona (near Longreach) in 1912; Bladensburg (near Winton) and Highfields (between Corona and Bladensburg) in 1915; Headingly (Urandangie) in 1916; before moving into the Northern Territory with the purchased of Avon Downs (Barkly Tablelands) in 1921. From the 1930s gradually phasing out sheep the AACo became increasingly involved in beef cattle, developing the Santa Gertrudis stud at Goonoo Goonoo and purchasing Rockhampton Downs (Barkley Tablelands NT) in 1948, Wrotham Park (near Chillagoe, Q) in 1963, Brunette Downs (north of Tennant Creek) in 1979.

In 1975 the London-based directors resigned and the Company’s tax domicile was transferred from London to Tamworth, NSW and then to Brisbane in 1985 following the sale of Goonoo Goonoo. From 1976 the Company’s name was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange as the Australian Agricultural Company Limited. In 1995 Elders Ltd acquired the AACo and it was delisted from the Australian Stock Exchange. The Company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Futuris Corporation Limited after Futuris took over Elders in 1997. The Company was re-listed in 2001.

Forestry Australia was previously known as The Institute of Foresters of Australia and Australian Forest Growers. The Institute of Foresters of Australia was created in 1935 as the professional membership body for people trained in forest science. Australian Forest Growers was previously known as the Australian Forest Development Institute when it was founded in 1969.

Rhys Gardner is a New Zealand botanist. He completed his BSc (Hons) in botany at the University of Auckland in 1971, followed by a PhD in 1977. He has served as a botanical ecologist and taxonomist for the former DSIR Botany Division at Mt Albert, Auckland, and a consulting botanist for Bioresearchers Ltd. He also served as a volunteer at the Auckland Museum Herbarium for many years, becoming a Research Associate in 1990. He has worked widely in the field, collecting specimens from Rarotonga, Fiji, Norfolk Islands, the Solomon and Chatham Islands, New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea. He has described, new to science, three species, one subspecies and one forma. He has contributed botanical specimens to herbaria around the world. Most of his publications since the 1980s are to be found in the Auckland Botanical Society Journal and the New Zealand Botanical Society Newsletter.

Born in Arkansas, USA, David Hyndman studied at the University of Colorado, and completed his MA at the University of Idaho. In 1972, he moved to Australia to pursue his PhD at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Queensland. His doctoral thesis on the Wopkaimin people of the Ok Tedi area of Papua New Guinea was completed in 1979.
He studied subsistence, ethnotaxonomy, ethnobotany, mining and Indigenous peoples, and biodiversity conservation. He completed several periods of fieldwork in the region from 1973 through the 1980s. He spent a good deal of research on the effects of the Ok Tedi mine on the surrounding area, both socially and environmentally.
From 1989-1992, Hyndman worked with the T'boli people of Mindanao in the southern Phillippines. Hyndman was a lecturer and later a reader at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Queensland, from which he retired in 2001, moving to the Canberra region.

Patrick Nicol Troy was born in Geraldton, Western Australia on 22 January 1936. Son of trade unionist Paddy Troy, he worked in the private sector and in State and local government, as a planner in New South Wales and as a senior administrator in the Commonwealth, including as Deputy Secretary in the Federal Department of Urban and Regional Development in the Whitlam Government.
He held various positions at the Australian National University from 1966-2000 including professor and head of the Urban Research Unit, Research School of Social Sciences 1984-1991.
He served on State and Federal government agencies and as Deputy Secretary of the Department of Urban and Regional Development (1973-1975) he was involved in the establishment and operations of the South Australian Land Commission, Western Australian Land Council, New South Wales Land Council, Victorian Land Council and the Australian Housing Corporation. Troy held numerous appointments as a member of the South Australia Urban Land Council 1975-1977; Deputy Chairman Australian Housing Corporation 1975-1976; member of the Australian Housing Council 1984-1992; member Building Research and Development Advisory Committee 1984-1987; member of the board National Building & Technology Centre 1985-1988; member Ministerial Advisory Committee on Housing Access 1989-1990; member Urban Regional Development Advisory Committee 1992-1993; member ACT Planning and Land Council 2003-2006.
He published 15 books on cities and many papers on housing, infrastructure, transport, urban planning and development, and energy and water consumption.
Troy died in Canberra on 24 July 2018. The Patrick Troy Memorial Prize has been established at the Australian National University as a tribute to his work.

Hendrick Anton Herbert ("Hank") Driessen was a PhD student of the Research School of Pacific Studies. He began his enrollment at the Australian National University in 1978, and submitted his PhD thesis, From Ta'aroa to 'oro : an exploration of themes in the traditional culture and history of the Leeward Society Islands, in 1991. His PhD was conferred on 14 August 1992. He conducted fieldwork in the Society Islands over a number of years, and collected an archive of his research. He worked for many years at the National Archives of New Zealand, beginning as an archivist, and advancing to the head of Outreach Services and Exhibitions. He was a founding Council member of the New Zealand Society of Archivists from its inception in 1989 and served on the Council until 2000. Towards the end of his life, he returned to Australia, where he died in 2021.

Frederick William Doutch worked in a Burns Philp store on Banaba (Ocean Island) c. 1913 - 1915. He was an avid amateur photographer, and took photographs of his time in the Pacific, including his journey to Banaba and his time there. He often recorded the weather, light, time of exposure, and chemicals used to develop his photographic plates.

Dr Roy Scragg was the Director of Public Health for the Australian Administration of the (then) Territory of Papua New Guinea from 1957 to 1970. He also served in the PNG Parliament as a member of the Legislative Council and Executive Council PNG and as Member, House of Assembly and Constitutional Committee from 1957 to 1968. Dr Scragg had a large impact on the development of the public health program in Papua New Guinea, and undertook pioneering research into infertility.
Roy Scragg was born in Feilding, New Zealand, later moving to South Australia where he obtained his medical degree from Adelaide University in 1946. He then joined the Department of Public Health for the Australian Administration of the (then) Territory of Papua New Guinea. Dr Scragg obtained a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the Sydney School of Public Health in 1950, shortly before he began his ground-breaking research into infertility in New Ireland. He discovered the role of gonorrhoea in infertility in New Ireland, which had led to a decline in population. Twenty years later, in 1975, the WHO commented that the “most complete epidemiological study on the prevalence of infertility, pregnancy wastage, and child loss is that by Scragg on New Ireland in the West Pacific.” He received a Doctorate in Medicine from Adelaide University in 1955 for his thesis on the depopulation of New Ireland.
In 1957, Dr Roy Scragg was appointed the Director of Public Health for the Australian Administration of the (then) Territory of Papua New Guinea from 1957. He succeeded Sir John Gunther in the post. He ensured that the country was covered with a network of aid posts and health services, even in remote regions, to control the major diseases and causes of death. During his time as Director of Public Health, the crude death rate (per UN estimates) in PNG declined from 27.4/1000 to 16.5/1000.
Dr Scragg promoted the training of PNG nationals as doctors, nurses, and medical personnel, paving the way for independence. Although he had to send PNG nationals to Fiji for medical training, Dr Scragg was an active participant in the establishment of health science education in PNG and the establishment of the Medical School within the University of PNG.
On his return to Australia, Dr Scragg continued contributing to scholarship and public life. He served as a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators, president of the Public Health Association of Australia and life member of the Australasian Epidemiological Association, among other positions. In 1971 Scragg was recognised as an officer of the Order of the British Empire and in 2021 he was appointed a member of the Order of Australia (AM) to mark his significant contributions to medicine, epidemiology and medical associations. He earned a master of public health in 1982 from the Sydney School of Public Health and was made an honorary doctor of Adelaide University in 2014. Dr Roy Scragg died in 2022.

In 1904, J C White and F C White became owners of the property of Brunette Downs. The Whites went into partnership with Alfred J Cotton in 1912 and bought out Cotton in 1928. The property was purchased by King Ranch's Australian subsidiary, King Ranch Pastoral Co Pty Ltd, in December 1958 and was later purchased by the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) for $5 million in 1979. As a subsidiary of the AACo, its managers included K J Warriner (1979 - 81), B Gough (1981 - 86), C I Paige (1986 - 87) and G F Wagstaff (1987 - ).

Leslie (Les) Montague Groube was born in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, on 12 December 1937. He completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Auckland University, under Jack Golson. His early focus and fieldwork was on Maori settlement patterns. He later held positions in the Anthropology Departments of the University of Otago and the University of Auckland. The New Zealand Archaeological Association’s Groube Fieldwork Award (also known as the Groube Gumboot Award) was named in his honour. After 1969, Groube left New Zealand, and spent varying amounts of time in Canberra at the Australian National University, Port Moresby, Dorset, and Cambridge where he pursued fieldwork and lecture positions. He retired to Brittany, France, and died in 2018.

The Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies was established in 1948 as the Research School of Pacific Studies, changing its name in 1994. It is Australia’s pre-eminent centre for research and postgraduate training in the Asia-Pacific region, with one of the largest concentrations of expertise in the world. Priority areas for research are Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Southwest Pacific. Research is multidisciplinary and is focused on anthropology, archaeology, economics, history, human geography, international relations, linguistics, political science, resource management and strategic defence studies. In 1947 New Zealander Raymond Firth, an anthropologist who had published widely on the Pacific and Southeast Asian region, was invited by the Interim University Council to act as the Academic Advisor for Pacific Studies with the hope that he would take on the job as Foundation Professor. Firth’s initial plans for the School of Pacific Studies were that it would have an emphasis on human studies and be concerned mainly with the Pacific Island territories for which Australia was responsible. In contrast to this, proposals put forward by Sir Frederick Eggleston to the Academic Advisory Committee, before Firth’s appointment, called for a school that was to also have an Asian focus and concentrate on political problems in the Pacific. In 1949 Firth resigned from the Academic Advisory Committee, deciding not to make the move permanently to Australia from England, giving Eggleston the opportunity to substitute a broader scope for the School including India, Southeast Asia, China and Japan. In mid-1949 Firth was persuaded to resume his role as Academic Advisor and made the initial appointments of chairs to Siegfried Frederick Nadel (Anthropology and Sociology), Walter Russell Crocker (International Relations), James Davidson (Pacific History), and Oskar Spate (Geography) and the appointments of Readers W.E.H. Stanner (Comparative Social Institutions) and C.P. Fitzgerald (Far Eastern History). Further departments were added: Economics (1960), Linguistics (1968), Prehistory (1969), and the New Guinea Research Unit (1961). The Geography Department reformed as two departments in 1968: Biogeography and Geomorphology, and Human Geography. Its name was changed to the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in 1994, to reflect the balance of research activity in the School which had shifted significantly from the Pacific towards Asia.

Brian Galligan was born in Dalby, QLD in 1945. He graduated in Economics and Commerce from the University of Queensland, and has a Masters and PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto. In the early 1980s he was Senior Research Fellow, Department of Political Science at the Australian National University and Deputy Director, Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations. From 1984-1992 he lectured at La Trobe University. Galligan was Professor and Director of the Federalism Research Centre at the Research School of Social Sciences, ANU from 1992-94. Since 1995 he has been a Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne and later became a director of the university's Centre for Public Policy. Galligan is author of a number of books on Australian citizenship, politics and political economy, and has co-authored publications including Beyond the Protective State (1992) with Ann Capling.

Jai Ram Reddy was born on 12 May 1937 in Lautoka, Fiji. He completed a Bar-at-Law from the University of New Zealand, Wellington 1956-1960. Reddy entered politics in the 1970s as leader of the National Federation Party (NFP) and leader of the Opposition. His political appointments included Leader of the Opposition’s nominee in the Senate 1972-1976; Member of the House of Representatives April 1977; Leader of the Opposition 1977-1984; Attorney General and Minister of Justice April-May 1987; Member, Falvey Constitution Review Committee July 1987; NFP-FLP nominee to the Deuba Accord Committee September 1987; Member of the House of Representatives 1992; Leader of NFP and Leader of the Opposition 1992–1999; Member, Joint Parl. Select Committee on Constitution Review (1995-1997). He was a co-principal architect of the 1997 Constitution of Fiji, and a supporter of reconciliation in post-1987 Fiji. Reddy was defeated in the 1999 general elections and departed from politics in the same year. He then took up the position of President, Fiji Court of Appeal (March-August 2000; January 2002-April 2003) and Permanent Judge, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda 2003-2008.

The company was registered on 30 October 1908. The company owned Mount Wood Station, near Tibooburra in New South Wales. Mount Wood Station was first taken up in 1883 by George Dorward and later the homestead and woolscour were built in 1897. Proprietors of the station were Moore, Dorward & Co (1893 - 1897); Moore, Dorward and Palmer (1905 - 1907) and later Mount Wood Pastoral Co Pty Ltd (1908 - 1973). Its Managing Director included Ian McLachlan (1950s - 1973). Mount Wood Station was incorporated into Sturt National Park after 1972. The company was deregistered on 16 January 1987.

Richard (“Dick”) Shutler Jr. was an archaeologist who worked extensively in North America and the Pacific during his career.
World War II interrupted Shutler’s higher education. After enlisting in the US Army, Shutler spent the majority of his service (1942-1946) in the Aleutian Islands. After the war, Shutler earned his AB and MA at the University of California (Berkeley), and later his PhD at the University of Arizona in 1961. Shutler’s fieldwork focused primarily on North America until the late 1960s, although his first fieldwork in the Pacific took place in New Caledonia in 1951/2 with Edward Gifford and his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Shutler.
Dick Shutler excavated widely across the Pacific, including fieldwork in Vanuatu in 1963/4 and 1966/7, in Gilbert Islands in 1969, in Vanuatu in 1971, in the Philippines in 1976 and 1978, in Fefan Island in 1977, in Rotuma in 1981, in Hong Kong in 1990, and in Tubuai in 1994. Shutler was involved in fieldwork in Tonga throughout the 1990s.
Among his many academic appointments included serving as department chair at the University of Iowa and at Simon Fraser University. After resigning the chair at Simon Fraser University, he remained at the university with emeritus status to continue his research. He died in 2007, at age 86.

Parke was born in Moreton, Dorset in 1925. In 1951 Parke was posted to the Western District of Fiji. He would continue to work in the country, in various locations and posts, over the next 20 years. He was also a Trustee of the Fiji Museum and advised the museum on archaeological matters. After Fijian independence, Parke relocated to Canberra, where he pursued his MA and later PhD at the Australian National University based on his many years experience in Fiji.

Professor Spriggs is the Professor of Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, College of Arts and Social Sciences at the ANU. Prior to this he was a Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology and Natural History, in what is now the College of Asia Pacific. Before joining the ANU in 1987, he was an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department of University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu. His research interests are the archaeology of Island Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, and Cornish Studies.

Dr Barry McGowan was an historian specialising in mining towns and Chinese communities in Australia. Born to Mac and Olga McGowan in Oakleigh, Victoria, Barry McGowan grew up in Mount Gambier, South Australia. He completed an economics degree at the University of Adelaide in 1967, then volunteered as an economist for the South Pacific Commission in Noumea for two years. After returning to Australia, McGowan became a public servant for the Australian Government. He worked in various departments including the Department of Industrial Relations until 1995, while privately pursuing his interests in mining, history and archaeology. McGowan’s first book on mining, Lost mines revisited: historic mining communities of the Monaro, Southern Tablelands, and south-west slopes districts of NSW, was published in 1994. In 1995 he graduated from the ANU with a Bachelor of Arts, and left the public service to work as a heritage consultant, and to commence doctoral studies at the ANU. McGowan gained his PhD in 2002, and his thesis, Dust and dreams: mining communities in south-east NSW, was published in 2010. He published many other papers, heritage reports and books relating to mining and Chinese–Australian history. McGowan was awarded a Medal in the Order of Australia for services to community history in 2018.

Ralph Gerard Ward was born on 20 May 1933 in Taupo, New Zealand. He received a BA (1954) and MA in Geography (1956) from Auckland University College, and PhD from the University of London (1963). He worked as a Junior Lecturer in Geography 1956-1959; Lecturer in Geography 1960-1961, University of Auckland. From 1961 to August 1967 he was Lecturer in Geography at the University College London. Ward was foundation Professor of Geography at the University of Papua New Guinea 1967-1971. He joined the Australian National University as its foundation Professor of Human Geography, Research School of Pacific Studies from December 1971 to 1998. During his tenure he was Head of Department 1971-1980 and 1995-1998. Ward was appointed to Director, Research School of Pacific Studies November 1980-May 1993. After retiring in 1998, Ward became a Visiting Fellow of The Pacific Centre, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU. He contributed to the governance of three Pacific universities, serving on Council for University of Papua New Guinea, National University of Samoa and Universite Francaise du Pacifique. He has also served on the Pacific Science Association and the Australian National Commission for UNESCO. He died on 16 January 2023 in Adelaide.

Professor Arthur Burns was a Professor of Political Science, specialising in superpower rivalry, nuclear weapons and game theory. Born in Summer Hill, Sydney on 24 March 1922 to Crayton and Denise Burns, Arthur Burns was educated at Scotch College, before studying history, theology and philosophy at the University of Melbourne. In 1946 he was awarded a Masters in Philosophy and History for his thesis on Historical Explanation. In the same year Burns married Netta Cox, and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister. In 1947 to 1948 he attended the London School of Economics under a British Council Scholarship. On returning to Melbourne, Burns tutored and lectured in Church History at Ormond College Theological Hall, and in History at the University of Melbourne. He was appointed Research Fellow in International Relations within the Research School of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University in 1955. In 1961 Burns transferred to the Department of Political Science, Research School of Social Sciences, where he oversaw a Defence Studies Project 1963 – 1966, which was managed by the department on behalf of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Burns was appointed to second Chair in the Department in 1966. He undertook international posts at a variety of institutions including the Universities of Princeton and Chicago, and the Royal Institute of Strategic Studies. Burns published prolifically in the 1950s and 1960s, with his major works being From Balance to Deterrence (1956), and Of powers and their politics: a critique of theoretical approaches (1968). Burns was involved in litigation with the ANU 1981 to 1994 after his employment was terminated. He was an independent candidate for the Australian Capital Territory Assembly in 1995 as part of the Abolish Self Government Coalition, but died five days before the election.

Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Brennan was an Australian philosopher who held professorial positions at ANU, University of North Carolina, Duke University and Virginia Tech. Originally trained as an economist, he worked at the intersection of economics, politics and philosophy and played a major role in the development of interdisciplinary 'PPE' research. He was Director of the Research School of Social Sciences at ANU from 1991 to 1996. He was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences in 1987 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of St. Gallen in 2002.

The Mount Stromlo Observatory was established in 1924 as the Commonwealth Solar Observatory. The site had been used for observations since an observatory was established there by Pietro Baracchi using the Oddie telescope in 1911. The dome built to house the Oddie telescope was the first Commonwealth building constructed in the newly established Australian Capital Territory. Until World War II, the observatory specialised in solar and atmospheric observations. During the war the workshops contributed to the war effort by producing gun sights, and other optical equipment. After the war, the observatory shifted direction to stellar and galactic astronomy and was renamed The Commonwealth Observatory. Following the establishment of the Australian NAtional University in 1946 a formal amalgamation took place in 1957, with Mount Stromlo Observatory becoming part of the Department of Astronomy in the Research School of Physical Sciences at ANU. The Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics was formed in 1986 and continues.

On 18 January 2003 a firestorm hit Mount Stromlo destroying telescopes, workshops, homes, and the administration building. The only telescope to escape the fires was the 1886 15-centimetre Farnham telescope.

The Drill Hall was built in 1940 to train soldiers for the Second World War. The 3rd Battalion, Werriwa Regiment was based in this building in 1941-2. In 1984 the interior was superbly remodelled to create an art gallery which is considered one of the most beautiful of its kind. In 2004 a Heritage order was placed on the building.
While the National Gallery of Australia waited for the completion of its building, temporary exhibitions of the national collection were held here. In 1992 the Australian National University took over the Drill Hall Gallery as a showcase for its own art collection and as a venue for temporary exhibitions. There are 4 discrete exhibition spaces.

The Gallery is a venue of choice for many of Australia’s leading contemporary artists, curators and collectors. We have developed a proud tradition of impeccably presented landmark exhibitions accompanied by scholarly publications. Sidney Nolan’s 9-panel panorama, Riverbend (recently nominated among the ten must-see art treasures of Canberra) is on permanent display in the Riverbend Room.

The Drill Hall Gallery provides the Canberra community and ANU with a selective program of high quality exhibitions of Australian and international art. The Gallery supports the arts in the Canberra region by presenting exhibitions developed in conjunction with the University’s wide-ranging academic interests and/or to coincide with major conferences and public events. National and international exhibitions – and works from the University’s own extensive collection – are features of the Gallery’s program. Surce: Quoted from https://dhg.anu.edu.au/about/ on 9 January 2023