Melbourne Historical Journal

Note from the Editors

Bronwyn Beech Jones — 2020-09-09

A note from the editorial collective of MHJ 2019/2020.

Gaming, history and the care and protection of children

Mary Tomsic — 2020-09-09

Gaming, history and the care and protection of children

Apologies in Post-War Lebanon: An Examination

Nayree Mardirian — 2020-09-09

Following the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) the country entered into a period of ‘collective amnesia’ whereby the Lebanese avoided discussing the conflict at all costs. This amnesia was encouraged by Lebanon’s key politicians and elites, who were often perpetrators of violence or leaders of militias. However, since 2001, a series of political apologies have occurred in Lebanon. These apologies have been discussed and debated in the Lebanese press; they have also encouraged various responses from the public regarding motives and sincerity. Using examples of apologies between Lebanon’s Christian community and Palestinian refugees, this article will highlight how apologies are becoming part of the country’s civil war discourse. Art, the press and film will also be examined, as they are other areas which have linked apologies to civil war memory and discussions.

The Extraordinary Medieval Woman: Responding to the Critical Reception of Gwerful Mechain’s Poetry

Adelaide Greig — 2020-09-09

Gwerful Mechain was a female Welsh poet during the fifteenth century. While little is known about her life, scholars generally agree she hailed from amongst the lower nobility of Montgomeryshire, a district of Wales, and was married to John ap Llywelyn Fychan, with whom she had a daughter. She is the author of the largest body of poetry by a medieval Welsh woman to remain extant for modern readers. While also the author of religious work, she is best known for her poetry which explored the feminine condition, including experiences of sex and marriage. The reception of Gwerful’s work within literary scholarship from the twentieth century onwards has ranged from the ambivalent, to the delighted, to the downright derogatory. The first half of this article will examine the reception of Gwerful’s work both within her own time and contemporary scholarship, and argue ultimately that it is her status as a female poet most notable for her writing regarding women’s experiences that has led to such divergent responses. I aim to establish Gwerful Mechain as an example of a historical woman who broke the mould expected by her society and continues to deviate from our modern assumptions of what a medieval woman might be. Having done so, in the second half of this article I discuss whether using terms such as ‘extraordinary’, ‘bold’ and ‘modern’ to describe such historical women, is helpful in the pursuit of rewriting history without a patriarchal lens. An androcentric record of history has promoted the idea that women who were outspoken, vital, self-assuredly sexual, and cognisant of the world were indeed rarities, extra-ordinary in the literal sense of being divergent from the standard, and not-of-their-time. I argue that to finally acknowledge the immeasurable number of women who are unrecognised by the historical record it is necessary to adjust the language used when discussing those whose lives have been, as least in part, remembered.

Of Honour and Innocence: Royal Correspondence and the Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots

Elizabeth Tunstall — 2020-09-09

This article considers the diplomatic tension caused by the discovery of
Mary Queen of Scots’ involvement in the Babington Plot and how it was
negotiated in the correspondence of Queen Elizabeth of England and King
James VI of Scotland. Rhetorical strategies of honour and innocence were
utilised within these letters to create narratives that sought to balance the
needs of both monarchs and their kingdoms. While the correspondence did not
prevent the suspension of relations between the kingdoms following Mary’s
execution, they did play a vital role in restoring it shortly before the coming of
the Spanish Armada in 1588.

‘Posh People Love Gangsters’ Contested Heritage: Preservation Debates at the Former Pentridge Prison Site: 1993-2014

Mali Rae — 2020-09-09

The former Pentridge Prison site in Coburg holds a place of notoriety in the collective memory of Melbournians. When it was closed in 1997, debates around which parts of the site are worthy of preservation began. Despite great tourist interest in former prison sites in Australia, commercial development was prioritised over tourism, due to the hugely profitable present state of the Melbourne real estate market. As dark tourism has not been taken up at Pentridge, this article focusses on the heritage and preservation debates at the former prison site. The way in which the site is preserved, what is prioritised and what has already been lost indicates more about the values of the present than what is worth preserving from the past. Through an exploration of the heritage debates around various parts of the Pentridge site; H-Division, Jika
Jika, the burial sites and prisoner artwork, this article seeks to discover what makes a particular part of the site more worthy of preservation and protection. Once it was clear the state government were unwilling to preserve the entire
site and it was sold to developers, only part of it would be preserved. This forced heritage advocates to decide on a hierarchy of the value of certain parts of the site. Ultimately, the age of a structure within the site and the previous
tenancy of a celebrity prisoner always outweighed the socially historic aspects of the site. The article makes key judgements about the contextual nature of heritage and the complicated narratives that prisons leave behind, particularly in the Australian context.

Mosaic, gold, and frilly skirts: Mirka Mora’s legacy in Melbourne

Sabine Cotte — 2020-09-09

French born Mirka Mora (1928-2018) had a particular status in Melbourne: a beloved artist, forever celebrated for her Parisian accent and the epitome of bohemia, she has left many public artworks in the city, populated with her characteristic imagery of children, fantastic creatures and flowery plants. Her public image, her original sense of dress and her eccentric behaviour are as famous, if not more, than her art. Mora’s unique place in the city’s social and artistic circles has much to do with her European migrant status, her central role in Melbourne’s artistic world since the 1950s, together with her important production of public works that have become city landmarks, and her extensive public engagement through workshops, classes and artist talks. However, if material culture was her bedrock to create a powerful image that
made her stand out as a woman artist in a male dominated industry, she also cleverly used her materials and techniques to create artworks that impress by a complex approach of tradition and symbols. Although she embraced a large number of techniques during her career – spanning more than six decades – this essay will focus on her public artworks, and examine the broader implications of her material choices and practices.

Listening to a Train Wreck: A Warrnambool Drama in Sound

Henry Reese — 2020-09-09

In the early autumn of 1897, a passenger train derailed between Warrnambool and Allansford in the Western District of Victoria. Thankfully no one was badly harmed. This local scandal reverberated through the community and encouraged a range of responses. The dramatic clamour of colonial modernity literally coming off the rails provoked a local impresario to recreate this event in sound. The Warrnambool sound recordist Thomas Rome’s construction of the train accident is one of the earliest surviving Australian-made recordings.

In the spirit of Greg Dening, This paper offers a close re-reading of this micro-historical fragment, emphasising the motley of associations that accrued to early performances of recorded sound in colonial Australia. Thomas Rome’s recording provoked listeners to attend deeply to their own local soundscapes. This hints at a longer trajectory for the concept of ‘field recording’ than is conventionally ascribed, and complicates neat distinctions between scholarly and creative approaches to history-writing.

The following is the written version of the paper presented by Dr Henry Reese at the annual Greg Dening Memorial Lecture held at the Forum Lecture Theatre, University of Melbourne, 15 October 2019.

Between Captives and Consuls: Searching for the ‘Little English’ of Barbary

Nat Cutter — 2020-09-09

In the early modern period, many Britons freely took up residence in the Islamic world, in search of wealth, freedom or self-actualisation. However, little is known about these people and their lives, beyond incidental mentions in other sources. Drawing on little-known correspondence from the English consulate in late seventeenth century Tunis, this lecture traces the lives of servant apprentice William Newark, renegade translator Hassan Agha, and housekeeper-turned-merchant Edith Stedham to shed light on the everyday lives of these non-elite expatriates. In the spirit of Greg Dening, I hope to allow the ‘little people’ of the past to speak for themselves.

The following is the written version of the paper presented by Nat Cutter at the annual Greg Dening Memorial Lecture held at the Forum Lecture Theatre, University of Melbourne, 15 October 2019.

‘1000 Babies Can’t Be Wrong’: Listening out for Arthur Deery, an alien doctor in Victoria

Fallon Mody — 2020-09-09

In January 1961, fifty mothers marched through the Victorian town of Healesville demanding their doctor, who had been abruptly dismissed, be reinstated to the local hospital. The Sun reported they marched in “blistering, near-century heat” carrying placards that declared, “1000 Babies Can’t Be Wrong” and “Doc Deery forever”. The mainstream newsworthiness of this moment was who these white, middle-class mothers mobilised in support of: Doc Deery was a Hungarian Jewish “alien doctor” with “communistic ideas”. Arthur Deery was among hundreds of refugee doctors who arrived in Australia in the 1930s. Historians have paid little attention to this group beyond representations of their marginalisation, as social and professional outsiders. In this paper, Fallon Mody will re-present Arthur Deery’s migrant medical life, which spanned 40 years, and three country towns. In doing so, this research highlights how such biographical explorations enables what Greg Dening called “history’s empowering force” to give us a deeper, more human understanding of being an “alien doctor” in Australia.

The following is the written version of the paper presented by Dr Fallon Mody at the annual Greg Dening Memorial Lecture held at the Forum Lecture Theatre, University of Melbourne, 15 October 2019.

Interview with Carolyn Fraser, 16 December 2019

Stephen Jakubowicz — 2020-09-09

Interview with Carolyn
Fraser, 16 December 2019

Interview with Sophie Couchman, 3 July 2019

Jessie Matheson — 2020-09-09

Interview with Sophie Couchman, 3 July 2019

Interview with Irene McInnes, Alice McInnes, Eli Farrow and Jason Best, the Hosts of the Podcast Queer as Fact, 21 July 2019

Jessie Matheson — 2020-09-09

Interview with Irene McInnes, Alice
McInnes, Eli Farrow and Jason
Best, the Hosts of the Podcast
Queer as Fact, 21 July 2019

Review: ANU Historical Journal II Edition 1 (2019)

Jessie Matheson — 2020-09-09

ANU Historical Journal II Edition 1
(2019)

Review: Exhibition: Ancestral Memory 6 May - 11 October 2019 Old Quad, University of Melbourne

Ada Coxall — 2020-09-09

Exhibition: Ancestral Memory 6 May - 11 October 2019 Old Quad, University of Melbourne

Artist and curator: Maree Clark

Creative consultant: Jefa Greenaway

Project curators: Samantha Comte and Jacqueline Doughty

Review: The past that never passed: A review of the NGV Terracotta Warriors and Cai Guo-Qiang exhibition

Luke Yin — 2020-09-09

The past that never passed: A review of the NGV Terracotta Warriors and Cai Guo-Qiang exhibition

Review: Immigration Museum Exhibit, ‘Our Bodies, Our Voices, Our Minds’

Patrick Murphy — 2020-09-09

Immigration Museum Exhibit, ‘Our Bodies, Our Voices, Our Minds’

Review: Russell McGregor 'Idling in Green Places: A Life of Alec Chisholm' Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2019

Jessie Matheson — 2020-09-09

A review of 'Idling in Green Places: A Life of Alec Chisholm' Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2019

Review: Jessica Hinchy 'Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c.1850-1900' Cambridge University Press, 2019

Luke Yin — 2020-09-09

Jessica Hinchy 'Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c.1850-1900' Cambridge University Press, 2019