Hunter Living Histories

Join us for the University Library’s monthly Hunter Living Histories showcase. All Welcome.

WHEN –  Monday 14 October 2024 (1.00pm-2.30pm)

WELCOME & ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO COUNTRIES (Gionni di Gravio OAM)

PRESENTATIONS

• PRESENTATION 1 : ‘The Fettler’: a biography of ‘Uncle’ Bill Smith, an Aboriginal elder and leader in the Hunter region by Dr Greg Blyton (Author). Greg is joined by Uncle Bill’s wife, Gloria, and daughter Cheryl. WATCH HERE

• PRESENTATION 2: “Material Culture and Exchange at the Australian Agricultural Company Settlement, Port Stephens, 1826-1833″ by Eleanor Foster, PhD Student, Trinity College, Cambridge. [Unfortunately Eleanor is unable to join us, but will reschedule for the November Showcase]

ROSS EDMONDS’ EXOTICA NOVOCASTRIANA – RARE BOOKS & CURIOS OF THE HUNTER REGION – KENDALL’S SUPRESSED BOOK OF POEMS

• This month Ross will be speaking on Kendall’s suppressed book of poems which contained a scandalous one about Ninian Melville. Melville was one of the Members for Northumberland during the 1880s; his electorate covered the Lower Hunter.
• By 1880 Newcastle had become “the very hotbed of radicalism and ultra-democratic notions”, and the poet Kendall was forced to withdraw his libellous poem about an early labour politician, Ninian Melville. The University Archives holds labour history records that go back to those times when Trade Unions and the Newcastle Eight Hour Committee met in the local hotels, before the opening of the first Newcastle Trades Hall, (at the corner of Hunter and Union Streets), in the 1890s.
• Kendall’s poem “The Song of Ninian Melville” is included in Kendall’s “Songs From The Mountains”, published in 1880. It’s the 1st edition of Henry Kendall’s Songs from the Mountains (1880) which was suppressed due to the libellous poem and is as rare as two sets of hen’s teeth. Located in Special Collections at A821.1 KEND-1 SONG 1880 and another copy at A821.89P/K337/6

UPDATES FROM THE REGIONS

• • Regional GLAM Institutions Updates
  • Hunter Regional Committee Hunter National Trust Updates

RECENT NEWS

• Pipers Project Meeting hosted by Hunter Rainbow History Group at Bernie’s Bar 410 King Street, Newcastle, 5:30 PM on Sunday 13 October 2024. Pipers Project aims to bring together people who have memories of the three Piper’s Nite Spots, on Hunter Street 1979 – 1993 to collect and write a history of the Pipers.

• University (FREE) History Seminars. Convenor: Dr Sacha Davis.

  • Firstly, this is a reminder that our next seminar paper is this Friday 11 October, at 10-11am (UTC+11). Our speaker, Sebastian Meredith (Newcastle), will present on EU Enlargement and the Troubles of Integration. This event will be online and in person.

  • Secondly, our following seminar paper will be on Friday 18 October, from 10-11am (UTC+11). Our speaker, Julie McIntyre (Newcastle), will present on Connecting Australian First Nations’ Histories with Settler Colonial Winegrape Cultivation. This event will be online and in person.
    Abstracts, attendance details and a Zoom link are below.
    1) Sebastian Meredith (Newcastle), EU Enlargement and the Troubles of Integration.

    Week 10: Friday 11 October, 10-11am (UTC+11) W202 and Online

    In 1995, the European Union’s (EU) ‘Fourth Round’ of enlargement, which welcomed Austria, Finland, and Sweden as member states, demonstrated the organisation’s drive to enlarge and embody ‘Europe.’ At least, that is the way in which official rhetoric explained the process. This paper will place the 1995 enlargement in a context of rapid transformation in post-communist East Central Europe (ECE) and a ‘victorious’ Western Europe contemplating its position as Europe’s only remaining hegemonic bloc. It will highlight the EU’s competing desires for greater integration with ‘the East’ and for insulation against the risks that integrating with ‘Easterners’ might bring. In doing so, this paper will argue that the Fourth Round was an important symbol of the intersection between World-Systems economic processes and Orientalist-Balkanist prejudices, and a moment that set the tone for the ongoing relationship between the EU organisation and its ECE member states.

    Sebastian Meredith is a PhD candidate and sessional academic at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His research primarily concerns the ways in which the European Union and its constituent countries have approached the complex process of integrating diverse economies and national identities. He has a particular interest in East Central Europe, and in 2022 published “The EU, the Visegrád Group, and Southeast Europe: Conflicting Perspectives within an Enlarging ‘European Identity’” in East European Politics and Societies. Sebastian also has a co-authored chapter under review, which examines the history of anti-Turkism in Bulgaria since the 1870s. He is currently researching an ‘axis of difference’ in European identification revealed by attitudes towards LGBT-oriented policymaking throughout the EU.

    2) Julie McIntyre (Newcastle), Connecting Australian First Nations’ Histories with Settler Colonial Winegrape Cultivation.

    Week 11: Friday 18 October, 10-11am (UTC+11) W202 and Online

    The global diffusion of winegrapes (Vitis vinifera) from western Europe to European colonies since the fifteenth century is often historicised as a benefit bestowed upon those colonial places rather than an invasion of ecologies where sovereign Indigenous peoples knowingly managed their land. British colonists in Australia associated wine production and consumption symbolically with imperial and colonial power, envisaging the material advantage of domestic and export profits and social appeasement within the emergent colonial order. Settler colonial winegrowing is thus a salient site for observing settler-Indigenous relations. This presentation discusses research completed during Special Study Leave in Canada during 2023 as part of a collaboration called Settler Vines.

    Julie McIntyre is an associate professor of history at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She directs Newcastle’s Wine Studies Research Network and serves on the steering committee for the Australian Aotearoa New Zealand Environmental History Network. Her research career has focused on wine in Australia across several themes, most recently Indigenous-settler colonial relations and industry. She is writing a global history of Australia for Princeton University Press.
    For in-person attendance: W202, Behavioural Science Building, Callaghan Campus, University of Newcastle (Australia)

    Zoom meeting ID: 870 4036 3272

    Password: 783069To Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://uonewcastle.zoom.us/j/87040363272?pwd=QTJQait4ZFFMa1pKYVgzQzhPTHF5Zz09These events will be recorded.Presentation recordings will be available from our YouTube channel, History@Newcastle:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiju7vKLANeSX4QxBpMwJow

HUNTER LIVING HISTORIES – Latest Posts

• “Material Culture and Exchange at the Australian Agricultural Company Settlement, Port Stephens, 1826-1833″ by Eleanor Foster, PhD Student, Trinity College, Cambridge.
• “What Ever Happened to Margaret and Ned’s Land At Lake Macquarie” by Gionni Di Gravio OAM
• Clergy Abused Network (CAN) Presentation (3 October 2024) and Updated Improving Access to Care Leavers Site
• Watch Again. September HLH Showcase Mapping the Regions Video Now Online HERE

EXHIBITION

Engineers Australia ‘Inner Newcastle heritage walk’ – 10.00 am — 1.00 pm, 14 September 2024. FURTHER DETAILS HERE

“Unrolled” – The Hunter’s Forgotten Maps [In Preparation]

End : (2.30 pm)

Next Meeting : Monday 4 November, 2024