Lisa Hay is a former librarian and previous recipient of the State Library of Victoria’s AGL Shaw Summer Scholarship. She is enrolled in a Higher Degree by Research at Central Queensland University. Her thesis details the lives of Thomas Brookhouse and Patrick Geary and the circumstances that led to a mid-nineteenth century Western District murder mystery.

Author email: ljhay@me.com

Nicholas Coyne completed Honours in History at the University of Melbourne in 2015.

Nicole Davis is a Research Fellow and PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne.

Corresponding author: davis.nicole@unimelb.edu.au

Susan Walter originally qualified as an Agricultural Scientist, and worked in the fields of Quality Assurance and Technical Management in horticulture and organic waste-management. After researching and writing up family history as a hobby, this expanded into an interest in local history through a desire to know more about her home landscape. This involved joining Malmsbury Historical Society, 86 km north-west of Melbourne, in 2002 and later taking on the challenge of managing their research services in 2006.

Geoffrey Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Deakin University.

Author email: geoffrey.robinson@deakin.edu.au

Tiernan Morrison is a graduate of the undergraduate history program at the University of Melbourne. This article stems from research undertaken as a part of his final semester history project for which he won the University of Melbourne Gyles Turner Prize. He is currently working as a consultant in the higher education sector and a freelance writer.         

Author email: morrisontiernan@gmail.com

Miranda Francis is a history PhD student at La Trobe University in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Her research is an oral history of parenting in suburban Melbourne over the second part of the twentieth century. It involves life history interviews with women aged over sixty. She returned to study after many years working as an academic librarian. Her own children sparked her initial interest in the topic and continue to enliven it.

Author email: francis.m@students.latrobe.edu.au

Yosanne Vella is an associate professor in history pedagogy in the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta. She is a history teacher trainee and she lectures on various topics on history teaching. She was recently on sabbatical leave in Australia where she gave papers to undergraduate and masters’ students as well as to fellow academics on 'teaching change and continuity in history to secondary school children' and on 'using history teaching to combat Islamophobia'.

Richard Turner is undertaking a PhD in History at La Trobe University. He was first placed in the La Trobe History Honours in 2012 and received the Peter Cook Prize in Australian History and the WJ Banks Prize for Academic Excellence. He had a career as a filmmaker, writing, directing and producing more than 20 films prior to returning to academia.

Author email: richardturner@iinet.net.au