The Harry Gentle Resource Centre acknowledges, with deep sadness, the death of Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan AM FAHA on 30 April 2024.

Lyndall was one of Australia’s most influential historians whose work cast new light on the historical experiences of Aboriginal people in colonial and post-colonial times. Her first book, The Aboriginal Tasmanians, published in 1981, profoundly shaped national knowledge of Indigenous peoples’ traumatic experiences under colonial conditions and their resilience. Her continuing study of Tasmanian Aboriginal history, published in later volumes in 1996 and 2012, led to a broader engagement in mapping frontier violence across Australia. In collaboration with international scholars, she developed the study of massacres as historical events, leading a sizeable Australian research team that created the internationally acclaimed online Massacre Map showing frontier massacre sites.

Lyndall held positions in Australian studies and women’s studies at Australian National University, Griffith University, Flinders University, and the University of Newcastle. She was Lecturer and later Senior Lecturer at Griffith University, from 1977-1986, the principal lecturer in Australian history during that first decade of the University. One of her students during that time was Harry Gentle, whose passion for Australian history led to the generous bequest that founded the Harry Gentle Resource Centre.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan AM FAHA. Her loss is deeply felt, and her contributions to the field of Australian history will be remembered and cherished.