The HGRC is delighted to announce the appointment of its 2020 Visiting Fellows.

Congratulations to Jan Richardson, Rodney Pratt and Dr Michael Farrell who will join us for 12 months as they undertake exciting and innovative research.

Building on her MPhil thesis, historian Jan Richardson will create a database of female convicts and ex-convicts, their husbands and partners and children who came to Moreton Bay after the closure of the Moreton Bay penal settlement in 1839. She hopes to bring to light the unknown and missing stories, photographs and burial places of female convicts and their families in pre-Separation Queensland as part of her project.

During his 20 plus years of research, Rod Pratt has created a vast database of names of military personnel stationed at Moreton Bay from 1824 to 1869. Rod will conduct further research on these men for the HGRC ‘Dictionary of Early Queenslanders’ and contribute a number of biographies to feature on our website.

‘An Index for a Poetics of Queensland’s Weather’ is the proposed research project of the award-winning Australian poet, Dr Michael Farrell. His project is that of an index of figures and tropes of Queensland’s weather, as described in private and public documents. Through hard copy and digital research, the Index collects and compiles early descriptions of weather in pre-1850s Queensland, with a focus on the use of figural language.

Welcome and congratulations to Jan, Rod and Michael. We look forward to hearing more about your research during your time with us.