About Us

>Who are we?

The History Council of New South Wales is a peak body representing a culturally and geographically diverse membership. Members include local, regional, family and labour history organisations, Aboriginal history groups, museums and galleries, migrant and non-English speaking history associations, professional and amateur bodies, university history departments, libraries and archives, heritage organisations, local councils, as well as any other organisation where historical work is undertaken. 

Individual members also form an important part of our organisation. The General Council (formerly the Management Committee) of the History Council is elected by and from its membership in bi-annual elections. 

For further information about our membership.

The twenty member General Council initiates policy and oversees the work of the Council. Fifteen members of the General Council are elected by our corporate members, three by individual members, while the remaining two positions are filled by the Aboriginal members of the organisation. 

2008 GENERAL COUNCIL

Professor Emerita Jill Roe AO (President)
Nominated by Australian Society for the Study of Labour History (Federal Branch)
Jill Roe is Emeritus Professor in modern history, Macquarie University and chair of the editorial board of the Australian Dictionary of Biography. She was visiting professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University 1994-95 and has wide experience of the history world. She served on the first Management Committee of the History Council in 1996, and was president of the Australian Historical Association 1998-2002. She is a life member of the Australian Society for the Study of Labour History.
Contact:jroe@hmn.mq.edu.au

Dr Lisa Murray (Vice-President)
Nominated by City of Sydney
Dr Lisa Murray is Historian at the City of Sydney. Her research interests include urban and social history, cemeteries, cultural landscapes, memory and heritage. Publications include The Capitol Theatre Restoration and Musical Chairs: The Quest for a City Recital Hall. Lisa is actively involved in the Professional Historians’ Association (NSW) and several community history groups. She was first elected onto the History Council Management Committee in 2003.
Contact: lamurray@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

Christine Yeats (Treasurer)
Nominated by State Records Authority of NSW
Christine Yeats is the Manager, Public Access at State Records where she is responsible for managing the services for the public. These include the reading rooms, outreach and the publication programs. Christine is a regular speaker at seminars, workshops and conferences across the State where she delights in encouraging the use of the NSW State archives. She is the History Council’s representative on the Australian Women’s Archives Project — Sydney Joint Committee. Christine has been a member of the Management Committee of the History Council of NSW since 1996.
Contact: accman@records.nsw.gov.au

Freda Backes
Nominated by Australian Lebanese Historical Society
Freda Backes is the President of the Australian Lebanese Historical Society. After gaining a Bachelor of Arts in history, Freda gained postgraduate qualifications in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and Adult Education. Freda’s grandparents and great-grandparents arrived in Australia during the 1880s and early 1900s from Lebanon. Her family founded a long running business at Braidwood from 1912 until 1989. She has worked in government and NGOs as a policy officer. Amongst her community activities she served as an Alderman on Botany Council in the 1970s and for 3 terms as a Councillor on Randwick City Council before retiring in 2004. Contact:mail@alhs.org.au

Tracy Bradford
Nominated by Individual Members
Tracy Bradford is the Manager of the Aboriginal Trust Fund Repayment Scheme and Family Records Unit at the NSW Department of Aboriginal Affairs. Tracy holds post-graduate qualifications in Archives and History and is currently a PhD candidate at UTS. She has held various Archivist and Project Officer roles in the public sector including State Records of NSW, Parramatta City Council, TAFE NSW and the NSW Department of Lands. She has been a Councillor on the Management Committee since 2000, and has sat on various Committees including State Records Public Sector Advisory Committee, Salvation Army Historical Society Committee, National Trust and the Australian Society of Archivists.
Contact:tracy.bradford@daa.nsw.gov.au

Fiona Burn
Nominated by Australian Society of Archivists, NSW Branch
Fiona Burn has been an Australian Society of Archivists representative on the Management Committee of the History Council of NSW since 1999. She was a Federal Councillor of the Australian Society of Archivists from 1995 – 2000, holding the position of Federal Secretary during 1997/1998. Fiona Burn is Assistant Director, Access and Communication, in the National Archives of Australia, Sydney Office. She holds a degree in history and a Graduate Diploma in Archives Administration.
Contact:fiona.burn@naa.gov.au

Professor David Carment AM
David Carment, AM, BA (Hons) UNSW, PhD ANU, FACE, FFAHS was until his retirement in 2008 Professor of History at Charles Darwin University, where he was also Dean of the Faculty of Law, Business and Arts between 2001 and 2004. He has published extensively in Australian political history, the history of Central Queensland, Northern Territory history and Northern Territory politics. His more recent books include A Past Displayed: Public History, Public Memory and Cultural Resource Management in Australia’s Northern Territory(2001) and Territorianism: Politics and Identity in Australia’s Northern Territory, 1978-2001 (2007). Actively involved in many community and professional activities, he is a former President of the Australian Historical Association, the Historical Society of the Northern Territory and the National Trust of Australia ( Northern Territory). In 2003, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM).
Contact:dcarment@bigpond.net.au

Dr Dawn Casey
Powerhouse Museum
Dr Dawn Casey was the Chief Executive Officer of the Western Australian Museum from 2005-2007. Dr Casey is widely known nationally and internationally for her work as the Director of the National Museum of Australia.  She was responsible for the construction and development of the museum that opened as a Centenary of Federation project in 2001.  Dr Casey is currently an Adjunct Professor to the University of Queensland, Griffith University and Murdoch University and serves on a number of boards and committees.  These include the University of Western Australia, three advisory bodies at the Australian National University and Chairs the Advisory Board for the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne. She is currently Director of the Powerhouse Museum.

Michelle Cavanagh
Nominated by the Chinese Australian Historical Society
Michelle Cavanagh migrated to Australia in 1966. A feminist, mother of six and retired businesswoman, she loves literature, theatre and Australian history. While studying at Macquarie University, Michelle discovered peace activist Margaret Homes and wrote her biography, published in 2006. Now writing another life history, Michelle plans to continue such ventures.
Contact: michellecav@cia.com.au

Dr Lisa Featherstone
Nominated by Australian History Museum, Macquarie University
Lisa Featherstone is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Modern History at Macquarie University. She teaches in Australian history, Australian Studies and Gender History. She has published in journals and international edited collections in medical history and the history of sexuality, and has won prizes for articles in Australian Historical Studies and LIMINA. In 2005, she was the CH Currey Memorial Fellow at the State Library of NSW and took up a postdoctoral Fellowship in 2006 at Macquarie University.
Contact:lfeather@hmn.mq.edu.au

Megan Martin
Nominated by Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales
Megan Martin is Curator in charge of the Research Library and Conservation Resource Centre of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW, responsible for developing a specialist collection of publications and documentary materials relating to the history of houses, domestic interiors and gardens in NSW. She co-curated the exhibition Augusto Lorenzini: Italian Artist Decorator in Victorian Sydney at Elizabeth Bay House in 2001. She has worked as a consultant historian in the heritage field and is a former Local Studies Librarian. She has been a member of the Management Committee of the HCNSW since 1996.
Contact:meganm@hht.net.au

Professor John Maynard
Indigenous Representative
Professor John Maynard is Head of the Wollotuka School of Aboriginal Studies at the University of Newcastle. He was the Premier's Indigenous History Fellow in 2003 and an Australian Research Council Post-doctoral Fellow with Umulliko Centre for Indigenous Higher Education Research at The University of Newcastle. He was the recipient of the Aboriginal History Stanner Fellowship at the Australian National University in 1996 and has delivered lectures on board the QEII. His traditional roots lie with the Worimi people of Port Stephens, NSW. John was a member of the Executive Committee of the Australian Historical Association (2000-2002) and has worked with and within many Aboriginal communities – urban, rural and remote. He is the author of Aboriginal Stars of the Turf and Awabakal Word Finder and Dreaming Stories Companion.
Contact:john.maynard@newcastle.edu.au

Mari Metzke
Nominated by Royal Australian Historical Society
Mari Metzke, as Royal Australian Historical Society's Manager, works with historical societies, government and other history based organisations to promote history. She has been a History Council Management Committee member since its inception, is a member of State Records Community Advisory Committee, National Archives Consultative Forum and the Museum and Galleries NSW's Volunteer Reference Committee. She co-ordinates research and writes for Hornsby Shire Historical Society and is a member of Hornsby Council's Heritage Advisory Committee.
Contact: outreach@rahs.org.au

Dr Gunter Minnerup
Nominated by the School of History and Philosophy, University of NSW
Gunter, born in Germany in 1949, has taught European history at the universities of Portsmouth and Birmingham in the UK before coming to Australia and joining the School of History at UNSW in 2004. Gunter has a strong personal interest in the history of Indigenous Australia in addition to his primary research and teaching interests in European history.
Contact:g.minnerup@unsw.edu.au

Richard Neville
Nominated by the State Library of NSW
Richard Neville is Mitchell Librarian at the State Library of NSW. After completing an art history degree at the University of Sydney, he worked at the Art Gallery of NSW and the Australian National Maritime Museum, before joining the State Library in 1990, firstly as a curator with the Pictures collections, and then as Manager of the Original Materials Branch, before being appointed Mitchell Librarian in 2008. Richard has published widely on nineteenth century Australian art and society, and curated many exhibitions on these themes for the Library.

Heidi Norman
Indigenous Representative
Nominated by School of Social Inquiry, Humantiies and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney
Heidi Norman is a senior lecturer at the Social Inquiry Program at the University of Technology, Sydney. Her areas of research relate to Indigenous Australian history. She has recently completed a history of the NSW Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout and have begun work on a history of the Redfern and Waterloo Aboriginal communities with emphasis on economic change.
Contact: heidi.norman@uts.edu.au

Dr David Roberts
Nominated by School of Classics, History & Religion, University of New England
David Roberts is a senior lecturer in Australian History at the University of New England where he teaches convict history, Aboriginal history and rural history. He is the editor (since 2003) of the Journal of Australian Colonial History and has published on a variety of themes. He is the co-author of Ancient Ochres: The Aboriginal Rock Paintings of Mount Borradaile (2003) and co-editor of The Great Mistakes of Australian History (2006).
Contact:drobert@une.edu.au
 
Tracy Sullivan
Nominated by History Teachers Association of Australia
Tracy Sullivan is currently the Education Officer/Manager of the Australian History Museum, Macquarie University and lectures in history method at the University of NSW. She was a recipient of the Premier’s Modern History Scholarship in 2004, contributes to Teaching History, the History Teachers Association (NSW) journal and has six years experience teaching history in secondary schools. Tracy is currently the Vice President of the History Teachers Association of NSW and the NSW Co-ordinator of the National History Challenge.
Contact:tracy.sullivan@humn.mq.edu.au

Professor Richard Waterhouse
Nominated by the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry, University of Sydney
Richard Waterhouse is Bicentennial Professor of Australian History and former Head of School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (2000-2006) at the University of Sydney. He is the author of five books and more than fifty articles and chapters on aspects of American and Australian social, cultural and political history. His most recent book is The Vision Splendid: a Social and Cultural History of Rural Australia (2005).
Contact: Richard.Waterhouse@arts.usyd.edu.au

Dr Perry McIntyre (Ex-Officio)
Perry McIntyre served as President from 2005 until 2006 and has been on the Management Committee of the Council since 2000. She completed her PhD in 2006 at UWS and her qualifications include BSc, Dip.Ed, M.Litt, Grad.Dip. Local and Applied History and Diploma Family Historical Studies. Perry is on State Records Community Advisory Committee, is Vice-President of the Society of Australian Genealogists, and a member of the PHA. She works as a freelance historian and is involved in historical and genealogical tours to Ireland. She has broad knowledge and views of history from academic, amateur and professional perspectives.
Contact:info@sag.org.au

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