Freelance

I am a freelance historian and also a part-time History/English secondary school teacher. You can view my profile with the Professional Historians Association (NSW) here. I am a skilled archival investigator and in my research I have worked with archives in both Australia and the UK. I am currently a PhD candidate at Macquarie University and I am a member of the 2021-2022 Sydney Living Museums Learning Advisory Panel (Secondary Teachers). My research interests focus on nineteenth/early twentieth century NSW institutional histories, particularly in terms of schools, crime, mental health, and biography. Please see below for my bibliography.

If you are interested in commissioning some research in my specialist fields, please do get in touch. I can provide a more detailed CV and give a clearer sense of my availability and fees.

Bibliography – Books

  • Like a Wicked Noah’s Ark: The Nautical School Ships Vernon & Sobraon, Arcadia: Melbourne (2020).
  • Callan Park, Hospital for the Insane, Australian Scholarly Publishing: Melbourne (2018) – book shortlisted for the 2019 NSW Premier’s History Award (Community and Regional History Prize).

Bibliography – Articles

  • ‘A Day in the Life of a Vernon Boy’, Traces, edition 12, September 2020. Extract here.
  • ‘An eccentric curriculum: crafting larrikins aboard the nautical school ships Vernon and Sobraon’, Signals (magazine of the Australian National Maritime Museum), Issue 131, Winter 2020. Full article here.
  • ‘Captain Mason, Queen Bee and the Magic Lantern’, The Log (journal of the Nautical Association of Australia Inc) Vol. 54, No. 2, Issue 220, Winter 2020.
  • ‘The Sobraon: Not Just a Rusting Ship’, Journal of the North Shore Historical Society, March, 2019.
  • ‘Callan Park Ghosts’, Newswrite (magazine of Writing NSW), Summer 2018-19.
  • ‘Dr Herbert Blaxland, Medical Superintendent of Callan Park Hospital for the Insane’, History (magazine of the Royal Australian Historical Society), September 2017.

Skills

  • Archival and other research
  • Proposal/pitch development
  • Composition of articles and books for a range of audiences (popular to academic)
  • Editing
  • Indexing
  • Sourcing of images
  • Presentation of research and workshops (see my Events page for examples)
  • Interviews (in person and pre-recorded e.g. podcasts)
  • Programming for schools (NSW History/English curriculum)