This year’s Moreton Bay History Seminar, organised by Moreton Bay Regional Council, explores the discovery, preservation and importance of history in the Moreton Bay region. The all-day event at Morayfield on Thursday 19 May includes presentations by respected guest speakers and stalls from the region’s historical groups and societies.

Speakers include Dr Ray Kerkhove, Dr Margaret Kowald, Greg Hallam and Jan Richardson, with a special performance by Leena Salim.

Jan Richardson, PhD candidate and Research Assistant in the Harry Gentle Resource Centre, will focus on convicts and ex-convicts who escaped to, lived in, and travelled through the Moreton Bay region, from the hills and valleys of the Pine Rivers district to the shores of Moreton Bay and Bribie Island.

Date and time

Thursday 19 May 2022, 9:00am – 3:00pm

The full dress coatee of Captain Patrick Logan is part of the online collection of the National Army Museum in London. Captain Logan, 57th (West Middlesex) Regiment of Foot, was Commandant of the Moreton Bay penal settlement from 1826 until his death at the hands of Aborigines while undertaking a survey of the territory. Military historian, Rod Pratt, believes the coatee may have been donated by his wife Letitia upon her arrival back in the UK. View the coatee here.

George John Arnold Mackenzie Cameron was an Ensign in the British army who served at the Moreton Bay penal settlement from November 1848 to July 1850. He retired from the army in 1852 while residing in Brisbane and married Maria Feeney in July 1858 at Ipswich. In March 1865 the Camerons boarded the Fiery Star for London but the ship caught fire east of New Zealand. They boarded one of the overcrowded life-boats but were never seen again. Read Cameron’s biography.

HGRC Visiting Fellow, Rod Pratt, has spent over 30 years researching the role of the military in Queensland and has led him to author and co-author almost fifty journal articles, books and book chapters. As a Visiting Fellow with the HGRC, Rod’s research on the British Army at Moreton Bay, 1824 – 1850 has contributed greatly to the development of the Centre’s biographical and historical database. Rod’s research report on the roles of the subaltern officers at Moreton Bay can be accessed here.

Have you heard of Trove? Trove is a collaboration between the National Library of Australia and hundreds of Partner organisations around Australia. It is a single point entry to a treasure trove of artefacts, curiosities and stories from Australia’s cultural, community and research institutions. These include libraries, museums, galleries, the media, government and community organisations and more. On Trove you can find more than 6 billion digital items on any topic.  You can search thousands of digitised newspapers using key words search or explore by title, place, and date. Start searching Trove here.

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The HGRC is delighted to announce the appointment of its 2022 Visiting Fellows. Congratulations to Dr Dorothy Wickham and Dr Deborah Jordan who will join us for 12 months as they undertake original and innovative research.

Dorothy Wickham is a Director of a successful boutique publishing house, educator, author and historian. Dorothy intends to create a comprehensive database and biographical sketches of the immigrants on the Artemisia that arrived in mid-December 1848 carrying the first free settlers from Britain to Queensland. The database has the potential to unlock stories, linkages, and associations that have previously been overlooked and under-researched.

The links between early colonisation and the later successes of the nineteenth century women’s movement is the focus of Deborah Jordan’s project. Some of the women from early colonial families who experienced Queensland’s transition from penal to free settler colony in 1859 went on to play a leading role in the call for women’s rights as the century progressed. Re-visiting the women’s stories will enrich and deepen our understanding of the distinct achievements of the early women’s rights movement in colonial Queensland.

Welcome and congratulations to Dorothy and Deborah. We look forward to learning more about your research during your time with the Centre.

Assoc Professor Lynley Wallis delivered a presentation at QSA on Thursday 21 October 2021  titled ‘Understanding Queensland’s Native Mounted Police: A free online database to help communities research and understand the lives and work of an infamous police force’. Access  the talk here.

A recording of Jan Richardson’s talk, ‘Making a Fresh Start: Tasmanian Female Ex-Convicts in Free Settlement Queensland’, is now available to view on the Royal Historical Society of Queensland (RHSQ) YouTube channel. Held at the Commissariat Store Museum on 10 November 2021, Jan’s talk explores the stories of ex-convict women and their families who sought to make a fresh start as ‘free settlers’ in the colony of Queensland.

Jan Richardson is a is a PhD candidate in the School of Humanities, Law and Social Sciences at Griffith University. She is also a Research Assistant at the Harry Gentle Resource Centre in the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research.

View the talk here.

Many wonderful Indigenous resources have been digitised recently and are available online. Join Dr Hilda Maclean online on 17 November 2021 at 7.30 pm to learn about the material which can be accessed from home for free and what it tells us about Indigenous communities and their histories. Register here.

Making a Fresh Start: Tasmanian Female Ex-Convicts in Free Settlement Queensland.

Jan Richardson is a is a PhD candidate in the School of Humanities, Law and Social Sciences at Griffith University. She is also a Research Assistant at the Harry Gentle Resource Centre in the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University.

Jan’s lecture, to be held at the Commissariat Store Museum on 10 November 2021, will explore the stories of ex-convict women and their families who sought to make a fresh start as ‘free settlers’ in the colony of Queensland. Purchase tickets here.