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Education and Research

McGarvie’s list and Aboriginal Dyarubbin

This essay follows on from Introducing the Dyarubbin Project: Aboriginal history, culture and places on the Hawkesbury River, New South Wales

Royal Society of New South Wales

Growing out of earlier societies which endeavoured to further the cause of science in the colony, the Royal Society fostered discussion, learning and research from its formation in the mid-nineteenth century.

The Dyarubbin Project: Aboriginal history, culture and places on the Hawkesbury River

The winner of the State Library of NSW Coral Thomas Fellowship in 2018-19 was a collaborative project, The Real Secret River: Dyarubbin. Based on a list of Aboriginal words recorded along Dyarubbin (the Hawkesbury River) in the 1820s by Reverend John McGarvie that is held in the Mitchell LIbrary, winning the Fellowship allowed the team behind the project to work on the recovery, recognition and revitalisation of the river's Darug and Darkinjung history, culture and Language.

Real Secret River: Dyarubbin project

Collaborative research project led by Professor Grace Karskens as the Coral Thomas Fellow at the State Library of New South Wales 2018-2019. Once every place on Dyarubbin and its tributaries had an Aboriginal name, reflecting ways in which this Country was understood, used and experienced. Now only a handful survive on maps and in common usage. Using a list made by Reverend John McGarvie in 1829 that records the place names used by the Aboriginal people along the Hawkesbury River (Dyarubbin), a team of Darug people, historians, archaeologists and linguists identified the original locations, allowing for the recovery, recognition and revitalisation of the river's Aboriginal history, culture and Language.

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Coral Thomas Fellowship

Biennial research fellowship offered by the State Library of New South Wales. It was established in 2015 by Rob Thomas and his family at the end of his tenure as President of the Library Council in honour of his mother, Coral Kirkwood Thomas née Patrick (1920-1996). It is the Library's most significant fellowship.

Coral Thomas was born in Scotland 1920. She was an intellectual woman, awarded the THOW Scholarship in Civil, Constitutional and Public Law, and the Muirhead Prize for Law whilst attending Edinburgh University. Her academic career was curtailed during the War and in 1942 she joined the Foreign Office where she was employed in code and cipher work. During a posting to the British Embassy in Washington she met Fred Thomas, Group Captain of the RAAF Mission. They were married in May 1944 and moved to Melbourne where they raised their family and took an active part in the city's cultural life.

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Colombo Plan

Regional organisation formed in 1950 to strengthen economic and social development of member countries across Asia-Pacific. Many students came from across the region to study in Australia.

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Royal Society of New South Wales

The first scientific society formed in the colony, based on the model of the Royal Society of London.

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Butlin, Syd

Professor of Economics at Sydney University.

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Carslaw, Horatio S

Professor of Mathematics at the University of Sydney who worked on the theory of conduction of heat.

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Janisewski, Leonard

Academic and writer.

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Konishi, Shino

Yawuru woman who is a historian at the University of Western Australia. In 2020 she led an ARC Discovery Indigenous project with Dr Malcolm Allbrook and Professor Tom Griffiths from ANU to double the number of Indigenous biographies in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.

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Kwiet, Konrad

Professor of history and political science who became chief historian of the Australian war crimes commission.

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Nakata, Martin

Professor Nakata Martin has worked in the area of Indigenous education for several decades, and is a leading Indigenous academic in Australiat. He is the Pro-Vice Chancellor (Indigenous Education & Strategy) at James Cook University.

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