The History Council of South Australia Wakefield Press Essay Prize is awarded to the author of an essay that deals substantially with some aspect of South Australian history. This year’s prize was awarded to Stephen Valambras Graham of UniSA for ‘Open Doors: The Art of Charity in the Promised Land’.

The judges say that ‘this essay is an intriguing re-examination of well-known images that challenges our traditional understandings of them, and our State’s past’.

We are thrilled to be able to republish Stephen’s essay here on the Wakefield Press blog. This essay was originally published in the journal of the Historical Society of South Australia in 2021 (vol. 49).

Banner image: S.T. Gill, Going To Work, undated, watercolour, 25 x 33 cm, Canberra, National Library of Australia

Edited by Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby ‘Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe’: Nicolas Baudin’s voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science is a collection of essays written in the context of the French explorers’ belief that studying in situ was the only way for science to move forward.

In a special three-part guest series on the blog, John West-Sooby discusses how the book came to be, and the discoveries made along the way. In this third instalment, John examines the specimens collected on the Baudin expedtion.

Read on below.

Banner image: Terre De Diemen: Ile Maria. Tombeaux des Naturels, (detail) by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur

Edited by Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby ‘Roaming Freely Throughout the Universe’: Nicolas Baudin’s voyage to Australia and the pursuit of science is a collection of essays written in the context of the French explorers’ belief that studying in situ was the only way for science to move forward.

In a special three-part guest series on the blog, John West-Sooby discusses how the book came to be, and the discoveries made along the way. In this second instalment, John examines the drawings produced on the Baudin expedtion.

Read on below.

Banner image: Terre De Diemen: Ile Maria. Tombeaux des Naturels, (detail) by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur

In Robert T. Harris’ Dancing Before Storms, he examines five revolutions of the past that changed the power structures of our modern world. In this special guest post, Robert examines the similarities between revolutions of the past with our current political climate.

Read on below.

We’re pleased to announce the winner of the April WWWC: Cheryl Williss! Cheryl’s response to the prompt ‘I started a joke’ is a light-hearted tale of misfortune in an elevator. In Cheryl’s winning story, ‘Going Up’, a young woman rushing to a job interview runs into a strange roadblock.

This is the second time that Cheryl has won the WWWC – read her first winning entry, responding to the prompt ‘moving around’, here.

Cheryl has generously opted to donate her $250 voucher to the Fleurieu Peninsula Family History Group, which is incredibly generous of her.

Read Cheryl’s winning entry below.