VHJ DEC 24 DIGITAL. VICTORIAN HISTORICAL JOURNAL ISSUE 302 VOLUME 95, NUMBER 2

This issue of the Victorian Historical Journal opens with the speeches delivered at a special reception held at Government House on 22 August 2024 to celebrate the 115th anniversary of the foundation of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, then the Victorian Historical Society. The reception was hosted and introduced by the Governor of Victoria, Her Excellency Professor The Honourable Margaret Gardner AC, Patron of the RHSV, who was followed by The Honourable Sonya Kilkenny, Minister for Planning, and Emeritus Professor Richard Broome AM, RHSV President, all of whom congratulated the society on its longevity and commended its dedication to preserving our state’s history and culture.

Consistent with this objective, we are also delighted to publish in this issue of the journal the first session in a Discussion Series, ‘Understanding Victoria’, initiated and hosted by the Governor of Victoria. The series’ first session,‘“Disturbing the Order of Things”: The Impact of the Gold Rush on Ideas, Identity, and Society in Victoria’, was held on 30 May 2024. Facilitated by Maxine McKew AM, the session featured speakers Emeritus Professor Richard Broome AM, Robyn Annear, and Professor David Goodman, each offering insights into the impact of the gold rush on the formation of the new colony of Victoria shortly after separation from New South Wales
in 1851.

The first item in the next section marks the inauguration of the RHSV Victorian History Hall of Fame to recognise and honour significant contributions made both posthumously and by those still living to the writing of Victoria’s history. An explanation of the criteria accompanies the citations for the first five inductees included in this issue. The Hall of Fame will be published in the Victorian Historical Journal each December and updated annually, normally with two posthumous and two living inductees.

Sadly, the next item in this section of the journal is a farewell and tribute to Emeritus Professor John Rickard, a major contributor to Victoria’s published history and a long-term member of the RHSV, including its Council and Publications Committee. We will miss both his wisdom and his charm.

The main body of the journal then opens with three of the key annual lectures delivered at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria during 2024, followed by three refereed articles and two historical notes.

The three refereed articles discuss very different aspects of Victoria’s twentieth-century history from debates about the funding basis for the first old-age pensions, through patterns of development and sources for a social history of Dandenongs settlement before World War II, to an analysis of the sources of inspiration for Napier Waller’s artworks.

The two ‘Historical Notes’ in this issue discuss very different aspects of Victoria’s settlement history—on the one hand, a story of migration opportunities and disappointments, and, on the other, changes in underground mining technology from the 1860s to the 1950s.

This issue of the journal also includes twelve book reviews with particular significance for Victorian history, including biographical
studies, bushwalking, Antarctic exploration, local histories, early Indigenous–settler colonial relations in Naarm/Melbourne, and a history of changing treatment of intellectual disability at Kew Cottages. The variety and extent of these accounts of Victoria’s history are indicative of the many different approaches and interests inspiring research into the records of our past.

Notes taken from the Introduction by co-editors, Richard Broome and Judith Smart

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