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.