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Past John Oxley Library Fellows
The John Oxley Library Fellowship is awarded annually to support a research project that uses the rich resources of State Library's John Oxley Library and contributes to the creation of new knowledge of Queensland.
The recipient receives a stipend of $25,000 along with a personal work space within the John Oxley Library to utilise the extensive collections and material of the Library in the completion of an individual research project on their proposed topic of interest.
The 2022 John Oxley Library Fellowship was awarded to Dr Mimi Tsai for her project, Vernacular Landscapes and Queensland Memories: Exploring Queensland’s resilience through narratives of therapeutic environments.
Mimi's project explores the role of people-place relationships in Queensland history by examining three diverse cases that share healing stories - prison farming in H.M. Penal Establishment of St. Helena Island, Queensland war gardens and Chinese market gardening. Learning new perspectives from these histories, this fellowship will then investigate Queenslanders’ COVID-19 pandemic gardens and gardening experiences over the past two years.
Blogs:
- Garden stories in a time of pandemic digital storytelling pilot workshops
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Exploring therapeutic landscapes in Queensland histories: St Helena Prison farming
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Exploring therapeutic landscapes in Queensland histories: World War Two
Dr Mimi Tsai's Youtube channel:
Research Reveals:
- Watch Dr Mimi Tsai discuss the details of her project in her Research Reveals talk below (01:10 mins)
Research Reveals 2024 - Afternoon session
2022 John Oxley Library Fellow, Dr Mimi Tsai discusses her research project.
2022 Queensland Memory Fellows. A year in review.
The 2022 John Oxley Library Honorary Fellowship was awarded to Professor Anna Johnston for her project, History and Fiction: Mapping Frontier Violence in Colonial Queensland Writing.
Anna's project explores the representation of colonial violence in Queensland writing, including fiction, memoirs, and non-fiction and reveals that many Queenslanders knew about violence and dispossession, and some wrote about and agitated against it.
Blogs:
Research Reveals:
- Watch Professor Anna Johnston discuss the details of her project in her Research Reveals talk below (47:06 mins)
Research Reveals 2024 - Morning session
A/Professor Anna Johnston discusses her project, History and Fiction: Mapping Frontier Violence in Colonial Queensland Writing.
2022 Queensland Memory Fellows. A year in review.
The 2021 John Oxley Library fellowship was awarded to Dr Henry Reese for his project Electrifying Queensland: Modern Machines in the Sunshine State.
Henry's project will explore Queenslanders’ interactions with electronic and communications technologies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ‘Old’ technologies that are taken for granted today often have surprising stories to tell when taken seriously in their own context. When technologies like the gramophone, telephone, cinema and radio were brand new, their meanings and uses were unstable. ‘How does this work?’ ‘What does this mean?’ They tended to provoke early users to think about how their worlds came together. Things that are now taken for granted move in and out of surprising contexts like science, magic, popular entertainment, commerce and government. Henry will follow some of these threads to explore the experience of modern life in Queensland over 100 years ago. He hopes to present his research as a short podcast series, telling some of the surprising and unusual stories he finds.
For more information on Henry's project watch his video below.
Blogs:
Dr Henry Reese, 2021 John Oxley Library Fellow.
2021 John Oxley Library Fellow, Dr Henry Reese talks about the 2022 Queensland Memory Awards, his research project and what it's like being a State Library fellow.
Research Reveals. Electrifying Queensland: Modern Machines in the Sunshine State.
The 2021 John Oxley Library Honorary Fellowship was awarded to A/Professor Mark Lauchs for his project, Social Networks of Crime and Corruption: the First and Second Jokes.
Mark's project re-examines the detailed and vital records gathered by Phil Dickie that informed the Fitzgerald Inquiry to identify the many additional participants involved in producing Queensland’s extensive criminal networks. The analysis will cast new light on the social dynamics driving criminal consorting amongst public officials and fellow offenders by mapping these previously hidden networks.
Mark explains, "The report of the Inquiry concentrates on a slice of social history and the politicians receive a deserved but disproportionate share of the focus. Those of us who were adults at the time knew parts of what was occurring. The Queensland community participated in the illicit economy that the Joke fed off. This broader information is not in the report but will be in this collection. By tracing social networks, criminal associations become transparent, revealing the everyday mechanics by which public institutions and individuals can be corrupted"
Mark's project plans to produce a series of outcomes including a digital repository that will expand the recent history of the Fitzgerald era. The project will aso generate both scholarly and public publications and inform an oral history project being developed by QUT and the Retired Police Officers Association of Queensland.
Blogs:
A/Professor Mark Lauchs, 2021 John Oxley Library Honorary Fellow.
Research Reveals: Social Networks of Crime and Corruption: the first and second jokes.
The 2020 John Oxley Library fellowship was awarded to Dr Deb Anderson and Associate Professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton for their joint project The Women of the Great Barrier Reef: The Untold Stories of Environmental Conservation in Queensland.
In 1966, Terry Ridgway quit her typing-pool job in Brisbane and moved to a remote island in the Great Barrier Reef. Aged 19, she became ‘the girl Robinson Crusoe’, living solo and spending her time studying marine life, aiming to identify the more than 1,500 species of Reef fish. Except for a brief Sunday feature in an American newspaper, penned by the late Australian journalist Barry Wain, Ridgway’s story remains largely untold. Deb and Kerrie's fellowship explored what became of Terry's quest to advance our understanding of the largest living structure on Earth.
Their project highlighted the significant role women have played in the conservation of the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland. By learning from, and adding to, the collection of original materials within the John Oxley Library, their project seeked to discover and share the untold stories of women from all walks of life who have advanced our knowledge of the Reef and its protection. Importantly, the project laid the foundations for a landmark catalogue of cultural memory and heritage relating to environmental conservation in Queensland, raising awareness of the Library’s holdings and forming a vital tool for future research.
Blogs:
Publication:
Dr Deb Andersen and A/Professor Kerrie Foxwell-Norton, 2020 John Oxley Library Fellows.
2020 John Oxley Library Fellows: Deb Anderson and Kerrie Foxwell-Norton. The Women of the Great Barrier Reef.
2020 John Oxley Library Fellows: Deb Anderson and Kerrie Foxwell-Norton. The Terry Ridgway Story.
2020 John Oxley Library Fellows. Research Reveals: Women of the Great Barrier Reef
Dr Allison O'Sullivan was awarded the 2020 John Oxley Library Honorary Fellow for her project In their own words: women diarists of colonial Queensland.
In the 1880s, three vastly different women kept diaries of their journeys to a new home in Queensland. By starting from a point of commonality – their diaries – Allison traced the divergent trails through the history of the colony, following the fortunes and achievements of everyday women, and using these individuals to illustrate the distinct paths of women migrants to colonial Queensland.
Allison's project illustrated how individual women’s lives can be joined by a single common experience, and yet create different stories. The project presented Queenslanders with the opportunity to become familiar with people from our past and develop a sense of the place of their ancestors through the women portrayed.
Utilising original materials of the John Oxley Library, Allison's project created a living history for Queenslanders by giving a voice to women of their past.
Blogs:
Dr Allison O'Sullivan, 2020 John Oxley Honorary Fellow.
2020 John Oxley Library Honorary Fellow. Research Reveals: Women diarist of colonial Queensland.
The 2019 John Oxley Library fellowship was awarded to Louise Martin-Chew and Matthew Wengert for their joint project Designs-Details-Devils: A Visual History of Queensland’s Government Printing Office 1862-2013.
Matthew and Louise utilised the John Oxley Library collection to research the visual history of Queensland’s Government Printing Office (QGPO). The Government Printing Office was responsible for publishing official documents and information (‘Details’), including Hansard, Parliamentary Papers, Annual Reports, Royal Commissions, Acts & Bills & Regulations & Statutes, Nautical charts and Tide Timetables, Electoral Maps (and hundreds of other types of maps), Survey Plans, Railway Timetables, and other regular and occasional publications.
It generated beautiful and elaborate decorative printing (‘Designs’), including posters for the Government Intelligence & Tourist Bureau, and invitations and menus for official functions (Royal Visits, Parliamentary banquets and festive events etc.), and official artworks and illustrations for publications by all the different government departments and agencies— books, maps, charts, posters, pamphlets, and signs.
Many hundreds of people worked in the QGPO’s different sections—and the project aimed to organise a visual history of the workplace, and the staff (‘Devils’). These workers include artists William Bustard, Lloyd Rees, and Peter Smith Templeton. The gargoyles above the George Street facade represent the workers, who styled themselves as ‘printer’s devils’.
The industrious ‘Devils’’ work—creative 'Designs' and informative 'Details' published on behalf of the people and State—contribute to a rich visual history of Queensland through what the QGPO printed.
Blogs:
Louise Martin-Chew and Matthew Wengert, 2019 John Oxley Library Fellows.
Video: 2019 John Oxley Library Fellows - Louise Martin-Chew & Matthew Wengert. A Visual History of Qld’s Government Printing Office.
The 2019 John Oxley Library Fellows talk briefly about their time as Fellows and their project.
Video: 2019 John Oxley Library Fellows. Research Reveals: a visual history of Queensland Government Printing Office.
Research Reveals, a more in depth webinar by the 2019 John Oxley Library Fellows talking about their project and research undertaken over the previous 12 months.
Dr Gemmia Burden was awarded the inaugural John Oxley Library Honorary Fellow for her project Private lives, public knowledge: Gendered collecting and intimacies of place in Queensland c. 1842-1900.
Gemma utilised diaries, station records, personal papers, albums and images found in the John Oxley Library collection to investigate how settler and pioneer women on Queensland’s frontier collected, categorised, and understood the world around them, including through their relationships with local Indigenous people.
By focussing on Queensland as a case study, Gemmia uncovered exciting and intimate threads of knowledge production and histories of place that are largely hidden from Queensland’s history, while also highlighting how the Colony was connected across the Empire.
Dr Gemmia Burden, 2019 John Oxley Library Honorary Fellow.
Dr Jennifer Moffatt was the 2018 recipient of the John Oxley Library Fellowship for her project The story of Queensland’s selectors: how those who won land in a ballot contributed to Queensland’s social, economic and political development.
Jennifer examined the collections of the John Oxley Library and academic research to describe how the last selectors contributed to the progress of Queensland. The project endeavoured to make a new, rich and invaluable contribution to understanding Queensland’s social, economic, political and development.
Blogs:
Dr Jennifer Moffatt, 2018 John Oxley Fellow.
Video: 2018 John Oxley Fellow - Dr Jennifer Moffatt. The story of Queensland’s selectors and how those who won land in a ballot contributed to Queensland’s social, economic and political development.
The 2018 John Oxley Library Fellow talks briefly about her time as a Fellow and her project.
Video: 2018 John Oxley Library Fellow - Dr Jennifer Moffatt. Research Reveals: Land ballots in Queensland.
Research Reveals, a more in depth talk by the 2018 John Oxley Library Fellow talking about her project and research undertaken over the previous 12 months.
The 2017 John Oxley Library Fellowship was awarded to Dr Lauren Istvandity for her project Reminiscing about jazz in Queensland: Preserving pre-1965 oral histories for the Queensland Jazz Archive Collection.
Lauren’s project saw her record and collect new oral histories about the history of jazz in Queensland. The project sought to increase the volume, quality, and accessibility of material housed by the Queensland Jazz Archive Collection (QJAC, within John Oxley Library) through strategic engagement with jazz communities in Queensland.
The significance of this research lay in the precarious nature of oral histories to chart the early beginnings of jazz in Queensland. Many individuals, who have first-hand experiences with performers, venues, and events, are nearing very old age. As such, it was imperative to collect their personal narratives of this time, before their stories are lost or forgotten.
Blogs:
Video: 2017 John Oxley Library Fellow - Dr Lauren Istvandity. Queensland Jazz Archive Oral Histories.
The 2017 John Oxley Library Fellow talks briefly about her time as a Fellow and her project.
Video: 2017 John Oxley Library Fellow: Dr Lauren Istvandity. Research Reveals: Queensland Jazz Memories.
Research Reveals, a more in depth talk by the 2017 John Oxley Library Fellow talking about her project and research undertaken over the previous 12 months.
The 2016 John Oxley Library Fellowship was awarded to Lorann Downer for her project A century of politics ephemera: a window onto Queensland from 1915 to 2015.
Images and words were used to craft a fresh narrative about the use of political ephemera and, thereby, deepen our understanding of how politics is done in Queensland. Dr Downer reviewed ephemera from the John Oxley Library - including posters, pamphlets, how-to-vote cards, buttons, t shirts and caps - used during significant state elections, referenda and debates in Queensland from 1915 to 2015. Her aim was to chronicle significant ephemera held in the Library collections and analyse its use from a political marketing perspective.
This project encompassed the 1915 state election, which marked the start of Queensland’s two-party political system, and the most recent election in 2015. Reviewing ephemera across a century produced a fascinating chronicle. In addition, Dr Downer applied a political marketing perspective to consider what the ephemera reveal about the marketing of politics across time.
Dr Downer has an impressive history as a political researcher. Her PhD, Kevin07 and The Real Julia: Labor’s Use of Political Branding in 2007 and 2010, was awarded in 2014 from the University of Queensland.
Lorann’s teaching and research draws on her experience as a reporter, staffer and consultant. She was a Queensland political reporter for several years, including for ABC Radio. She then worked as a Director of the Government Media Unit for former Queensland Premiers Anna Bligh and Peter Beattie. She is also a communications consultant, specialising in working with government agencies.
Blogs:
Video: 2016 John Oxley Library Fellow - Lorann Downer. A century of politics ephemera: a window onto Queensland from 1915 to 2015.
Audio: Democracy – is Queensland different?, 2015, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
The 2015 John Oxley Library Fellowship for 2015 was awarded to Madonna Grehan for her project, ‘Something tangible to show our gratitude’: a History of Queensland’s Centaur Memorial. In 1943 during World War II, the Australian hospital ship the Centaur was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine 48km off Moreton Island. The sinking was Queensland’s worst maritime disaster, 268 lives were lost, 11 being Australian Army Nursing Service nurses.
From this disaster, five years later at a time of relative austerity, the people of Queensland rallied to create a tribute to the nurses lost, the creation of the Centaur Memorial Fund for Nurses in 1948. Ms Grehan’s project focused on this fundraising campaign, the largest coordinated in Queensland during the 20th Century, researching the stories around how communities and high profile public figures got involved right around the state.
Madonna Grehan has an impressive history as an independent historian and has completed a number of other fellowships and academic projects around Australia focusing on nursing and medical history. She has just finished a fellowship with the State Library of Victoria’s La Trobe Library and will produce a manuscript on Mrs Sarah Barfoot: An émigré gentlewoman midwife in Port Phillip and Victoria 1848-
Blogs:
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Avenging the Nurses: Government’s response to the sinking of 2/3 Australian Hospital Ship Centaur
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Highlighting Queensland’s links to the Centaur Memorial Fund for Nurses
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At the Brisbane Ekka, 1950-1977 – the Centaur Memorial Fund’s money spinner
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Centaur House, Mt Gravatt 1949: almost the first raffle of real estate in Queensland
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Centaur House, Queen St, Brisbane: A Memorial Edifice to Queensland’s Nurses in two World Wars
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A Centaur memorial event at State Library of Queensland, Monday 14 May 2018
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Imagining Centaur (Shrine of Remembrance, Melbourne exhibition)
Video: 2015 John Oxley Library Fellow - Madonna Grehan. Something tangible to show our gratitude’: a History of Queenlsland’s Centaur Memorial.
Historian Thom Blake was awarded with the 2014 John Oxley Library Fellowship for his proposed project Liquid Gold: the history of the Great Artesian Basin in Queensland. Thom documented the history of the Great Artesian Basin, with a focus on its social and economic impacts. He utilised the collections of the John Oxley Library for his project, including the use of station records, photographs and newspapers.
Thom Blake is a long standing professional historian and heritage consultant. In 2002 he won the NSW Premiers History Award: State Records Prize for his publication - A dumping ground: a history of the Cherbourg Aboriginal Settlement.
Blogs:
Video: 2014 John Oxley Library Fellow - Thom Blake. Liquid Gold: the history of the Great Artesian Basin in Queensland.
The 2013 John Oxley Library Fellows, Kathleen Mary Fallon and Matthew Nagas’ project - A Commemorative Pilgrimage of Significant Sites: the Australian South Sea Islanders from Tweed Heads to Torres Strait was to research, document, compile and photograph historic sites significant to Australian South Sea Islanders. Their project coincided with the 150th commemorations of the first arrival of Australian South Sea Islanders.
Approximately 62,500 South Sea Islanders were ‘brought’ to Queensland to work on sugar plantations. After extensive research, including travelling to various significant sites, liaising with the Australian South Sea Islander community and using the collections of the John Oxley Library, they are planning to publish a series of heritage tourism guides for different regional areas.
Blogs:
Video: 2013 John Oxley Library Fellows - Kathleen Fallon & Matthew Nagas. A Commemorative Pilgrimage of Significant Sites: the Australian South Sea Islanders from Tweed Heads to Torres Strait.
The 2012 John Oxley Fellow Don Watson’s project made a valuable contribution to local architectural history by extending his previously published research, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century: A biographical dictionary into the 20th century.
Mr Watson's research not only chronicled the lives and work of Queensland architects, it also recorded pioneering Queensland life and how our architects have adapted their skills to design buildings appropriate to the climate, new technologies, and times of economic hardship.
Blogs:
Video: 2012 John Oxley Library Fellow - Don Watson. Queensland Architects of the 19th Century.
Audio: Liking the unloved Don Watson, 2010, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
Heidi Gibson was awarded the 2011 John Oxley fellowship for her project, Border Ties that looked at the impact of Papua New Guinea’s independence on the traditional, familial and social networks of the Saibai and Boigu island communities.
The project explores whether there have been changes in the perception and roles of PNG nationals within the Saibai and Boigu island communities since independence; and how any such changes may have impacted upon relationships within families and other social networks that span the border divide.
Blogs:
Video: 2011 John Oxley Library Fellow - Heidi Gibson. Boarder Ties (Papua New Guinea and Torres Strait Islands).
Dr Jeff Rickertt was awarded the 2010 John Oxley Library Fellowship for his project proposal ‘Ernie Lane, Australian Labour’s resolute rebel’.
Dr Rickertt used the Fellowship to produce a biography of Ernest Lane, a prominent figure in the Queensland labour movement from the early 1890s until the late 1930s.
Blogs:
Audio: Ernie Lane the making of a Queensland rebel / with Dr Jeff Rickertt, 2011, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
Susan Addison and Dr Judith McKay were the winners of the 2009 John Oxley Library Fellowship for their proposed project, Cooking up Stories: exploring Queensland's rich and diverse culinary heritage.
Judith is a freelance historian and museum consultant. Susan is a freelance editor and writer. They used John Oxley Library resources to research Queensland's culinary heritage over the past 150 years.
Blog:
Audio
Video: Crazy about cakes, Susan Addison, 2009, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
The winner of the John Oxley Library Fellowship for 2008 was Gordon Grimwade and his research into the overland migration of Chinese migrants from the Northern Territory to Queensland in the late 19th and 20th Centuries.
Blog:
Dr Martin Buzacott was awarded the 2007 recipient of the John Oxley Library Fellowship for his research into Miraculous Mandarins: A Musical History of Queensland. Queensland is the only state in Australia which has never had a book written on its classical music history.
Martin said, "The Fellowship makes it possible for me as an individual author to write the most important book of my career, but I also intend to use it for the benefit of the John Oxley Library collection as a whole – and in turn for the benefit of Queensland’s cultural history."
Audio: Classical Queensland speaker Martin Buzacott, with Patrick Thomas and Pamela Page, 2008, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
Dr Celmara Pocock, the 2006 John Oxley Library Fellow used State Library of Queensland resources to research populist writer, Henry Lamond. Lamond's love of the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef contributed to their conservation and to their popularity as holiday destinations during the 1920s and 30s. Dr Pocock used resources from the John Oxley Library to build a fuller picture of Henry Lamond, particularly his personal life, development as a writer and his role in tourism and conservation of the Great Barrier Reef.
The winner of the John Oxley Library Fellowship for 2005 was Ian Townsend, an ABC journalist. Mr Townsend received the grant to write The Devil's eye: a novel , the story of more than 300 people who drowned in the deadliest natural disaster in Australian history. He drew on sources from the State Library's John Oxley Library collection, such as diaries, ships' logs, reports from the Queensland Native Mounted Police, newspaper articles, original meteorological reports and the account of the Torres Strait postmaster of the time.
Video: The 1899 pearling fleet disaster, Ian Townsend, 2007, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland.
The winner of the inaugural John Oxley Library Fellowship was Dr Venero Armanno.
One of Queensland's most prominent writers, Dr Armanno was awarded the fellowship from the State Library to research and document part of the State's history in 2005.
Dr Armanno has written several novels including the award-winning The Volcano, Firehead, Strange Rain, and My Beautiful Friend. He has also written three novels for young adults, short stories for a number of anthologies, screenplays and a play that was short-listed for Queensland Theatre Company's George Landen Dann Award.