List of Articles in Issue Vol 48 no 2, May 2026

Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
President’s update
By Colin Thomas    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

Board Director, Professor David Johnstone recommended to the Board that the Society consider establishing an annual scholarship grant for research into a specific topic of Australiana... The Board agreed to pursue potential partners and provide a maximum grant of $10,000 per annum to one or more recip...

More Information
Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
The Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award 2025
By Mike Dalton    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

All are worthy contenders but this year The Peter Walker Fine Art Writing Award is presented, for the first time, to joint winners – siblings Dr Jennifer Harris and Lindsay Harris, who collaborated but published

More Information
Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
One Hundred Years – Some Treasured Objects of History West, the Royal Western Australian Historical Society, part 2
By Dorothy Erickson    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

Dr Dorothy Erickson continues the evolving story of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society, now known as History West. She reveals more of its collection of treasured objects documenting the history of British settlement in Western Australia, explaining their tangible connections to Western Australia...

More Information
Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
Discovery of the earliest dated depiction of Australia’s Regent bowerbird
By Mark R. Cabouret & Justin J.F. Jansen    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

The Regent bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus) is the type species of the genus Sericulus established by William John Swainson in 1825, one of eight genera constituting the Australo-Papuan bowerbirds together forming the family of Ptilonorhynchidæ.. Altho...

More Information
Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
Queensland dairy farmer artist Wyclif Huston – an artistic casualty of World War II?
By Kevin Lambkin    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

Always on the lookout for those rare early paintings of Brisbane, Kevin Lambkin located a highly accomplished oil of a Brisbane River scene at auction in Sydney in 2024. The painting was simply signed ‘Huston’, a name unknown to Kevin and to the painting’s Sydney auction cataloguer who suggested a New Zea...

More Information
Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
There’s a Killer in the room
By R A Fredman    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

Most collectors of anything have a small table or two, useful to hold your tea, coffee or wine within reach while you relax in an old-fashioned easy chair. Avid collector Bob Fredman takes us through the several different styles made in Australia over a hundred years, and highlights the importance of the t...

More Information
Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
Australiana Society national tour to Tasmania, March 2026
By Annabel Tyson & Scott Carlin    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

The Australiana Society’s 2026 national tour, from 24–31 March, commenced in Launceston and travelled south via the Fingal Valley and Tasmania’s east coast, concluding in Hobart. The tour focused on historic properties and collections in private ownership not generally open to the public. ...

More Information
Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
Book review: A Survey of the Bateman Collection
By Scott Carlin    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

William Petsalis and JamesBateman’s A Survey of the Bateman Collection is a most welcome survey of more than 200 pieces from one of the most impressive collections of Australian colonial furniture and folk art ever assembled, the successor to the dispersed col...

More Information
Vol 48 no 2, May 2026
Jessie’s gold Kalgoorlie windlass brooch
By Greg Street    |   May 2026   |    Vol 48 no 2

In the 19th century, jewellery was the go-to gift for men to show their affection for a wife, fiancée or sweetheart. A century later, rarely do we know who gave what to whom, or when. Often the link has been lost, or the design has fallen out of favour, and the gift becomes neglected. Worse, it might have been...

More Information
The Australiana Society acknowledges Australia’s First Nations Peoples – the First Australians – as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of this land and gives respect to the Elders – past and present – and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.