RAHS Upcoming Events
The Royal Australian Historical Society has an established tradition of delivering a diverse Calendar of Events throughout the year, helping make history accessible to all. This program includes lectures, skills-based workshops, regional seminars, tours and book launches.
The annual RAHS Conference is a highlight of the Society’s activities. It provides an opportunity for the RAHS and its Affiliated Societies to network at a conference dedicated to promoting local and community history, showcasing the research of individuals and societies.
February 2025
RAHS Day Lecture – Joy Howarth: Australia’s Forgotten Film Star
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 5 February 2025 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
Event Description:
At the age of 22, Joy Howarth was plucked from obscurity, renamed Jocelyn Howarth, and cast in the 1933 Australian film The Squatter’s Daughter, becoming an overnight celebrity. Hollywood soon came calling – but instead of the fame her talent and courage deserved, she encountered heartache, scandal and professional disappointment. Shrouded in mystery for decades, the fascinating true tale of a forgotten Australian trailblazer is revealed here for the first time.
About the speaker:
Camille Scaysbrook has worked as a playwright, a radio writer, a media analyst, a political advisor on arts education, and an independent researcher on film history. She has participated in talks and interviews at the Biennale of Sydney, Jessie Street National Women’s Library and ABC Radio, covering topics ranging from women modernists in Australian art to film theory. She is the author of a forthcoming biography of actress Joy Howarth.
RAHS Evening Event – A Legacy in Print: Honouring the Past and Embracing the Future of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society
Event Date & Time: Tuesday, 25 February 2025 @ 6.00 pm – 7.30 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000 and Online via Zoom
Cost: Free
Event Description:
Celebrate the storied past of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, an essential outlet for Australian History since 1906. This event will be chaired by Dr Samuel White and provide a platform for engaging discussions with some of its past contributors. It’s a unique opportunity to connect with fellow history enthusiasts, potential authors, and dedicated members of our society. The Editor will provide an introduction to the journal, followed by a panel of contributors who will share their historical research methods and inspirations. This event is hybrid for members not in Sydney and will be recorded.
About the speakers:
Samuel White is Editor of the Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society. His work is focused on law, history and power. In 2024, he was appointed on a three-year term to be the Army Fellow at the Australian War Memorial to explore the notion of frontier violence. In 2025, he was made a Fellow of the National Library of Australia for his work on Australian constitutional legal history.
Christine Yeats is an archivist, historical researcher and active supporter of local historical societies. Her research interests include the history of the Romani (Gypsies) in nineteenth-century Australia and attempts to introduce a silk industry in Australia. She is President of the FAHS, Senior Vice President of the RAHS and a member of the Professional Historians Association (NSW & ACT).
David Carment AM is Emeritus Professor of History at Charles Darwin University, where he was Dean of the Faculty of Law, Business and Arts. He is also an Australian Dictionary of Biography Editorial Fellow and a Fellow and former President of the RAHS. He has published extensively on aspects of Australian history.
Leonie Bell is a professional tour guide and local historian who has won Bayside Council’s Ron Rathbone Local History Prize four times. She is an active member of the Botany Bay Family History Society.
Ben Hingley is a PhD candidate and sessional legal academic at the University of New England. His main area of interest is legal history. He is currently researching the use of martial law in colonial New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land.
March 2025
RAHS Day Lecture – How to watch a flogging: Pop culture convicts and the making of Australian history
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 5 March 2025 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
CLICK HERE TO BOOK A TICKET
Event Description:
Convicts loom large in Australian history having shackled the nation to a curious and contested origin story. In speaking to his book Caught on Screen, due for release in 2025, James Findlay will explore the role screen culture has played in projecting the convict experience to audiences in Australia and overseas. Including how such representations intersected with, and helped to direct major debates about nationalism, the legacies of colonisation, Aboriginal dispossession and the origins and character of Australian society.
About the speaker:
James Findlay is a Lecturer in Australian history at the University of Sydney. He has a research focus on historical film and television studies, convict history, Australian popular culture, and public history. He has held the Australian Film Institute Research Collection Fellowship and before becoming a historian worked extensively in film and television production, mostly in the field of documentary.
RAHS Special Lecture – Aspects of Chinese-Australian Heritage: Landscape Traces
Year of the Rabbit festivities, Chinatown, Sydney (Stuart Read)
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 19 March 2025 @ 6.00 pm – 7.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: RAHS members $20 | Non-members $25
CLICK HERE TO BUY A TICKET
Event Description:
The Chinese have long known Australia. As ‘sojourners’, fleetingly chasing sandalwood, trepang, gold and ‘stayers’. They marked landscapes of transit, harvest, making, growing, and trade. This included harvesting food and timber, ringbarking, mining, water use, and gardening. At first vegetables, later, much more. China has long had sophisticated horticulture and a rich flora. We owe it much – many garden plants are Chinese and got here early. Find out more!
About the speaker:
Stuart Read is a landscape architect, horticulturist and historian, with ongoing curiosity on cultural introductions, influences, and patterns of blending. His first NSW State Heritage Register Listing seen through to fruition was the Chinese Garden of Friendship at Darling Harbour. He is the Sydney Branch Chair and past national Australian Garden History Society Co-Chair and works by day for Heritage NSW.
April 2025
RAHS Day Lecture – The True Story of the Dog on the Tuckerbox
Dog on the Tuckerbox (RAHS Postcard Collection)
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 2 April 2025 @ 1.00 pm – 2.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: Free
CLICK HERE TO BOOK A TICKET
Event Description:
In 1932, the Australian Prime Minister unveiled the statue of the Dog on the Tuckerbox, in Gundagai, NSW, on the Hume Highway halfway between Sydney and Melbourne. As the town’s ‘pioneer memorial’, it would become arguably the most popular purpose-built tourist attraction until the ‘Big Banana’ in 1964. To coincide with the opening, Royal Doulton released a collection of souvenir ware; other souvenirs of the Dog on the Tuckerbox would multiply through the rest of the twentieth century.
The statue celebrated a popular story – told in an 1857 poem, and later poetry and song – about an unlucky bullocky whose team had become bogged ‘nine miles from Gundagai’. To cap it all off, his dog sat on his tuckerbox. Or did he?
About the speaker:
Richard White retired from the University of Sydney in 2013, having taught Australian history and the history of travel and tourism there since 1989. He is a Councillor of the RAHS and initiated the establishment of the History Council of NSW. His publications include Inventing Australia, On Holidays: A History of Getting Away in Australia, and Symbols of Australia (new edition 2020).
RAHS-WEA Workshop – Using Maps in Local History Research
Grace Bros. Ltd. subdivision, Lidcombe – John St, Parramatta Rd, Grace Ave, Frances St, 1929 (SLNSW).
This event is in partnership with WEA Sydney
Event Date & Time: Wednesday, 9 April 2025 @ 11.00 am – 1.00 pm
Event Location: History House, 133 Macquarie St, Sydney NSW 2000
Cost: RAHS members $35 | Non-members $39
Event Description:
Discover how crown plans, parish maps, town maps, subdivision plans and SIX Maps can enhance your research, shed light on local history, and assist in tracing family genealogy. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to refine your skills, this workshop is perfect for all levels. Participants will be introduced to the Historical Land Records Viewer, the NSW State Archives collection and other resources.
About the speaker:
Adjunct Associate Professor Carol Liston AO is an Australian historian who specialises in the history of early NSW (1788–1860). Her particular interest is the colonial development of the County of Cumberland (Greater Western Sydney), using land records, family history and surviving buildings to document the past.