History — Australian

Australia on the Map is a division of the Australasian Hydrographic Society. with a special focus on the early Maritime Contact History of Australia and New Zealand, particularly those parts that are not very well known

A biographical resource at the National Archives of Australia site.

An educational website developed by the Office of the Board of Studies for the Commonwealth Department of Veterans' Affairs. This site charts the course of Australians' involvement in World War Two.

The Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre contains Australia/New Zealand magazines, newspapers and newswires, reference books, biographies, photographs, maps and flags.

Titles include: Architecture Australia, Australian Geographic, Australian Women's Weekly, Inside Rugby, The Australian (National), The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), The Sunday Telegraph (Sydney), The Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney), Encyclopedia of Australia, History of Australia, etc.

Complete title coverage list available on EBSCOhost website.

Produced in 2007, these 3 CDROMs provide copies of the 6-volume Aldine histories set written by W. Frederic Morrison between 1888 and 1890 also held by the State Library NSW. They provide a history of Queensland, NSW & SA , extensive biographies and photographs and sketches of scenes and buildings.

(1) New South Wales (1365 pages) - Volume 1 comprises the history of NSW and includes topics such as the early explorers, geography, aborigines, flora and fauna, governors of NSW as well as the Constitution. Volume 2 has another four chapters which complete the history section. The biographical section, grouped by town, consists of nearly half of the whole set.

(2) Queensland (1083 pages) - includes chapters on Australian and Queensland history from the exploration of Australia through to the different districts of the colony of Queensland in 1888. It contains information on the different governors, the national constitution, interior exploration, resources, religious work, education, recreation, and 320 pages of biographies and photographs, grouped by towns.

(3) South Australia (1089 pages) - Volume 1 is divided into thirty-two chapters and covers topics including the early explorers, geography, aborigines, flora and fauna, education, religion, recreation, as well as primary and secondary resources, governors of SA and the Constitution. Volume 2 has one more chapter which concludes the history section. This is then followed by about 400 pages of biographies and 143 illustrations.

This is the online version of the multi-volume reference work. It contains authoritative biographical entries on over 10,000 significant Australians who died before 1980. It can be searched by name, gender, religion, cultural heritage, and occupation.

A Centenary of Federation in 2001 funded project by the University of Sydney to digitise key texts that record the making of the Australian Commonwealth.

Australian Heritage Bibliography ( AHB ), formerly HERA, produced by the Australian Heritage Commission, is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts articles from published and unpublished material on Australia's natural and cultural environment.

A database of more than 20 000 historic, natural and Indigenous places in the Register of the National Estate, the National Heritage List, the Commonwealth Heritage List, the World Heritage List, and places under consideration for any one of these lists. Information includes a place's values, its legal status, its significance, physical condition, history and photographs if available.

The Australian Heritage Places Inventory contains summary information about places listed in State, Territory and Commonwealth Heritage Registers.

The AHRR database describes records held in private ownership in Australia, and relating to all parts of Australia, including such territories as the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Norfolk Island. They record Australian life from the early years of European settlement until 1988. The AHRR database is limited to records identified during the Australian Bicentennial Historic Records Search in 1987-88 and no new records have been added since then.

The AHRR is a guide to sources on Australian social, economic, business, labour and cultural history at the local level. Strengths of the database include family history, women and children’s history, local history, rural properties, businesses, personal World War I & II histories, migrants and migration, sports and sporting clubs and festivals and celebrations.

Compiled by Elizabeth Hook in 2004, this index to Historical Records of Australia Series I, II and IV 1788 to early 1848 (33 volumes) has over 100,000 entries, covering Governors' despatches to and from England for the period 1788 to 1848 etc.

When publication of HRA began in 1914, there were plans to print them in 7 Series, as follows:

Series I (1) contains 'Governor's Despatches To and From England

Series II (2) Papers Belonging To the General Administration in sub-sections [not published]

Series III (3) Despatches & Papers Relating to the Settlement of the States [resumed publishing 1997]

Series IV (4) contains Legal Papers

Series V (5) Exploration Papers [not published]

Series VI (6) Scientific Papers [not published]

Series VII (7) Ecclesiastical, naval, and Military Papers [not published]

33 volumes were published up until 1925 but the project was then discontinued. In 1997 the project recommenced and number VII of the third series was published. As of Januaury 2004, there are 35 books in the set in 4 series.

An education website for Australia, the Australian History section covers the following areas : Indigenous History; Convicts & The Colonies; Settlers & Immigration; Australian Culture & Identity; Exploration (Before & After Settlement); The Beginnings of Self-Government; Nationalism & Federation; Australians at War; The Depression; Australia since 1945; Mineral Wealth and Industrialisation; Australian History - General Information; and Primary Documentation Sources.

An annotated directory of websites relating to Australian history compiled by the National Library of Australia.

The Australian Indigenous Index or INFOKOORI is a State Library of NSW index to the Koori Mail: the fortnightly national indigenous newspaper, published in Lismore, NSW, since May 1991, that focuses on the Indigenous people of Australia.

INFOKOORI is also an index to biographical information from other periodicals held by the NSW State Library besides the Koori Mail including: Our aim : a monthly record of the Aborigines' Inland Mission of Australia. (1907–1961), Dawn : a magazine for the Aboriginal people of N.S.W. (1952–1969), New Dawn (1970–1975) and Identity: Aboriginal Publications Foundation (1971–1982).

You can access Dawn and New Dawn, for full-text online versions of these 2 periodicals. Published by the NSW Aborigines Welfare Board, they contain family history information such as births, deaths, and marriages, as well as hundreds of photographs. They also contain articles about conditions and activities on reserves, stations, homes and schools in NSW.

Historical information about Aboriginal people and communities is also being added from other newspapers published in NSW that are held by the NSW State Library, such as the Armidale Express, the Dubbo Dispatch and Wellington Independent, the Australian Evangel , Today, the Daily Examiner (Grafton) and the North-western Watchman (Coonabarabran).

A register of documents vital to Australia's history. This is one of 40 similar programs run by UNESCO for various countries of the world. It aims to preserve key documents in archives and library collections around the world and ensure that they are always available.

Australian Periodical Publications 1840 to 1845 is a digital library of Australian journals that began publication between 1840 and 1845 and are listed in John Alexander Ferguson's Bibliography of Australia ( hence the alternative project name: the Ferguson Project ).

Some 74 of the 90-odd serial titles listed for the 1840 to 1845 period in the Ferguson Bibliography will eventually be digitised. 11 titles could not be located in Australia and another 5 titles were withdrawn from the project because they proved to be impossible to digitise adequately. Publications range from local newspapers, shipping and trade news, religious, colonial and political journals and are of relevance to research into 19th Century Australian colonial life. Some titles go up to 1855.

You can BROWSE the list of journal titles alphabetically, by year or by subject and you can keyword SEARCH journal titles and table of contents.

This project began in 1996 as part of the Australian Cooperative Digitisation Project and is a collaborative project between the University of Sydney Library, the State Library of NSW, the National Library of Australia and Monash University Library, with the support of the Australian Research Council.

A composite database comprised of a number of smaller indexes - such as the Local History, Biography and Australian Book Review indexes - which have been compiled over a long period of time by staff working in the Australian History & Literature area of the State Library of Victoria.

The index has references to published sources such as newspapers, journals and books. Published items will often be available at other large libraries, such as university and state libraries.

There are also references to unpublished files, such as: Local History; Biography, Subject; Family history letters; and Shipping letters files. These files contain items such as answers to previous enquiries and ephemeral material such as leaflets and pamphlets. The amount of information varies from one or two lines to several pages. There are also references to items containing newspaper cuttings on various topics. These unpublished items are only available at the State Library of Victoria.

The Noel Butlin Archives Centre is a nationally significant collection of primary source material relating to business and labour. The NBAC holds archives of industrial organisations, businesses, professional associations, industry bodies and the labour movement.

The story of Captain James Cook told through the collections of the British Library and other institutions such as the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum.

The Chinese Heritage of Australian Federation Project focuses on Australia's Chinese communities before and after Federation in 1901. Project outcomes include the recovery and presentation of historical materials and indexes concerning Chinese Australians, translation of Chinese-language historical documents, a world-wide web site, a travelling exhibition, and publications.

CHAF databases include:

(1) Tung Wah newspaper index - covers the Tung Wah News (1898-1902) and the Tung Wah Times (1902-1936) both held by the State Library of NSW.

(2) Chinese Australian History Resources database - a database of sources of Australian material concerning the history of the Chinese in Australia.

(3) Chinese Australians: A Guide to Holdings in the Mitchell Library - compiled by Paul Jones and Terri McCormack this draws specifically on the card indexes and index folders held in the Mitchell Library as well as the Dixson Library collection. This guide is available Online or at the State Library NSW .

(4) Chinese Australians: A Guide to Holdings in the NSW Office of National Archives of Australia - this Guide, also by Terri McCormack, has an online search and browse database and complements a survey of Chinese-related records in the NAA compiled by Julie Stacker and Peri Stewart entitled 'Chinese Immigrants and Chinese-Australians in NSW' (1996) which is available Online or at the State library NSW.

From Federation, the main Commonwealth agency with which Chinese in Australia had dealings was the Customs Department, which administered the Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 until the passing of the Migration Act of 1958 when responsibility went to the newly formed Department of Immigration.

(5) Digitised History Documents Database - digital copies of historical documents relating to the history of Australia's Chinese communities, with brief precis of contents and a source reference, available in two formats: as scanned copies of originals, and/or in searchable-text format.

CHAF Project Partners are La Trobe University ( Asian Studies Program ); the Museum of Chinese Australian History; and Shanghai East Normal University.

Documenting a Democracy is a National Archives of Australia website - developed in partnership with Australia's eight state and territory government archives and the National Council for the Centenary of Federation - that provides 110 key documents, in both digital and transcription format, relating to the foundation of Australia.

Key documents include nine sets of original legal and constitutional instruments for the creation and evolution of the Commonwealth, states and territories governments, accessed by either a place or map search tool. There is a Picture Album of people and places behind the documents; information on how Australia's constitutional boundaries were formed at Places; and an Australian history Timeline which shows what was happening when each document was written.

There are also Pathways to documents on the themes of Foundation, Building, Freedoms and Land. This webpage includes a digital map of Aboriginal Australia before the advent of Europeans.

Produced by Lesley Uebel in 2003, this CDROM has some 160,000 entries and provides a descriptive indices of:

(1) Historical Records of Australia Series I, II and IV -- 1788 to early 1848 (33 volumes)

(2) The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser 1803 to 1811 (9 volumes)

(3) The Hobart Town Gazette 1818--1819

It contains material relating to: convicts, early settlers, places of residence,land grants, exploration, stores, military and civil service, shipping and immigration,births, deaths, marriages, government orders and regulations, administration of the out settlements, clergy, manufacturing and agriculture, trials and court hearings, ships, sailors,captains and all aspects of life in early New South Wales, Norfolk Island, Van Diemen's Land, Victoria, West Australia and Northern Territory.

Australian Government Culture & Recreation Portal detailing the European discovery and the colonisation of Australia.

The National Library of Australia's Federation Gateway has been created to assist locating a wide variety of materials like books, web sites, pictures and manuscripts relating to the Federation of Australia.

The Federation of Australian Historical Societies Inc. is the peak body representing the interests of historical societies throughout Australia. The organisation encourages the study and publication of Australian history, the preservation, interpretation and promotion of moveable and built heritage, and public access to historical information and heritage collections. It promotes communication and mutual assistance within the historical society movement and provides a forum for the exchange of ideas on historical matters. Where appropriate, it lobbies federal, state and local governments on issues of concern to historical societies and assists their work in a variety of other ways.

A joint project of the State Library of NSW and Sydney University, this site provides digitised and transcribed documents relating to the First Fleet and early settlement of Australia. Many of the documents are from the Mitchell Library's manuscript collection.

A website dedicated to bushranger Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan, Victoria. Includes original newspaper reports, police documents & eyewitness accounts of the events of late June, 1880.

A guide to locations of historical records of Australian companies, currently encompassing 2,337 entities with references to 1,396 archival resources and 894 published resources. Changes of company name are provided for some companies.

There is an alphabetical Browse List of all entities or through one of the following 7 categories : Corporate Bodies; Industry Bodies; Partnerships; Pastoral Stations; People; Statutory Authorities; Repositories.

The repository browse allows you to see which business records are held in a particular archive, including Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales.

This Historical Towns Directory is an Australian Heritage magazine database which is a regional guide to Australia's historic towns and local historical, heritage and visitor organizations.

There is a choice of map-based or state and/or keyword box searching.

The purpose of the Independent Scholars Association of Australia ( ISAA ) is to encourage and support individuals who undertake independent scholarly work outside the nation’s formal institutes of education and research; to promote such scholarship; and to stimulate public debate in Australia.

The ISAA Review, now a refereed journal, appears biannually. Its contents reflect ISAA’s efforts to encourage dialogue between disciplines.

Informit is the leading provider of online access to indexes and full text databases of Australasian scholarly research. A product of RMIT Publishing, databases can be divided into the following major subject areas: Agriculture, Arts, Asian, Business, Education, Engineering, Health, History, Indigenous, Law, Media, Reference, Sciences, Social Sciences and Technology.

The International Australian Studies Association (InASA) was formed in 1995. It builds on the foundational work of the former Australian Studies Association (AUSTA). The formation of the new association was a recognition that Australian studies is now an international enterprise with Australian studies centres and professional associations throughout Asia, Europe and North America.

InASA's aim is to promote links between the Australian and international Australian studies communities, and to lobby Federal and State governments to support the development of Australian studies internationally.

InASA produces the Journal of Australian Studies (University of Queensland Press).

A joint State Library of NSW and Sydney University project providing digitised access to the following journals concerning the early exploration of inland Australia:

(1) Blaxland - Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across the Blue Mountains

(2) Eyre - Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia (1845)

(3) Leichhardt - Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia (1847)

(4) Mitchell - Journal of an expedition in the interior of tropical Australia (1848)

(5) Mitchell - Three Expeditions in the Interior of Eastern Australia (1839)

(6) Oxley - Journals of two expeditions into the interior of New South Wales

(7) Stuart - Explorations in Australia (1864)

(8) Sturt - Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia (1833)

(9) Sturt - Narrative of an Expedition into Central Australia (1849)

(10) Spencer and Baldwin - Native Tribes of Central Australia

Includes historical as well as technical information and photographs of lighthouses around Australia. Includes links to international lighthouse websites. Includes an accommodation guide for Australian Lighthouses.

Updated annually, this online Australian dictionary includes the Macquarie Thesaurus online

The National Museum of Australia's establishment of the Centre for Historical Research has consolidated the study of Australian history and museum issues.

Online features include:

(1) Collaborating for Indigenous Rights - explores the campaigns waged in postwar Australia to overturn discriminatory laws and expose racism.

(2) Cook's Pacific Encounters - explore more than 300 artefacts collected during James Cook's three voyages to the Pacific.

(3) Into the Simpson desert - audio blog. Listen to archaeologist Dr Mike Smith tell his story of discovery, comrades and camels.

Produced by the Ned Kelly Museum at Glenrowan, Victoria.

The Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, known as Pambu, was formed in 1968 to copy archives, manuscripts and rare printed material relating to the Pacific Islands. The Bureau is based in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University and is sponsored by a number of libraries in Australia, New Zealand and the USA specializing in Pacific research, including the State Library of NSW.

This archive currently consists of over 3,300 rolls of microfilm and related published indexes and now collects recorded audio interviews, oral histories and speeches. Complete sets of the microfilms and audio recordings are held in the major Pacific research libraries which sponsor the Bureau, including the State Library of NSW.

There is an online PMB catalogue to this collection, an online Guide to the microfilmed records of the Catholic Church in islands of the Western Pacific , a Sample Catalogue of South Seas Photograph Collections , the beginnings of an online Pambu digital photograph collection, a Shineberg Database of Indentured Labourers in New Caledonia and the Bureau's newsletter Pambu which began in 1968 and is available online from November 1995.

This site provides a directory of information about the association, events and activities (for members) and for non-members, information on applying for membership, a consultants' register, information on professional activities and a monthly calendar of events.

Project Gutenberg produces books in electronic form which are freely available to the public. This site provides access to over 10,000 texts. Includes books about Australia and by Australian authors and also some first fleet journals.

This site provides information about the Royal Australian Historical Society (RAHS) and its activities. It also contains information about Australian and New South Wales history, historic Sydney landmarks, and lists of contents of the RAHS journal.

Full text accounts of South Pacific exploration. James Cook's journals are linked to an interactive map of his voyage.

The Flinders papers website contains transcripts of over 150 documents about English navigator and chartmaker Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) that are currently held by the National Maritime Museum's Caird Library (UK).

The collection consists of three main groups :

(1) Flinders's papers, correspondence, charts and journals; narratives of his voyages; service papers and technical notes. This includes letters to and from Sir Joseph Banks and the explorer Sir John Franklin

(2) His wife Ann Flinders's letters and correspondence - some written while Flinders was imprisoned on Mauritius

(3) Sir William Flinders Petrie's miscellaneous collection of biographical material, notes, memoirs and news cuttings relating to his grandfather’s career; and correspondence with J F Shillinglaw about a biography of Flinders which Shillinglaw never completed.

This collection, currently on long-term loan to the Museum from Lisette Flinders Petrie, is the residue of those documents presented to the Mitchell Library in Sydney by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853–1942), grandson of Matthew Flinders. These family papers form part of a larger State Library holding on Matthew Flinders, such as the following original materials.

An educational site about Australian bushrangers. The site is hosted by the University of New England's School of Curriculum Studies server.

The Companion to Tasmanian History is a comprehensive website providing information about every important aspect of Tasmania’s history, covering all periods and all places, published by the Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies, School of History and Classics, University of Tasmania.

Search personal and organisational archives, including diaries, manuscripts, letters, business records, photographs, posters, pamphlets, ephemera, etc. Information sourced from Libraries Australia, Music Australia and OAIster.