It is with great sadness that the HGRC team learnt of the sudden passing of our past visiting fellow, Rod Pratt, on Thursday 23 June 2022.

Rod was a visiting fellow with the Centre from July 2020 to October 2021. He was extremely generous in sharing with the HGRC his research of over 30 years into Queensland military history .

Rod’s life-long fascination with Queensland history led him to author and co-author almost fifty journal articles, books and book chapters, dealing with the roles of the military in Queensland. The topic of these publications range from the British red-coats posted to early Moreton Bay from 1824, the rise of Volunteer Forces in the 1860s, the Colony’s early school cadet movement, through to the service of Queensland Aborigines in the First A.I.F.

Through his project as a visiting fellow titled “The British Army at Moreton Bay, 1824 to 1850”, Rod contributed over 1,000 military entries for our dictionary of early Queenslanders.

Rod was a humble, self-effacing and polite man and the HGRC is honoured to provide an audience for a fraction of his extensive military history.