Hardcover w/ Dust Jacketnatural history, mediterranean, anthropology, civilization, walsh st library

"Aboriginal approaches to the naming of places across Australia differ radically from the official introduced Anglo-Australian system. However, many of these earlier names have been incorporated into contemporary nomenclature, with considerable reinterpretations of their function and form. Recently, state jurisdictions have encouraged the adoption of a greater number of Indigenous names, sometimes alongside the accepted Anglo-Australian terms, around Sydney Harbour, for example. In some cases, the use of an introduced name, such as Gove, has been contested by local Indigenous people." "The 19 studies brought together in this book present an overview of current issues involving Indigenous placenames across the whole of Australia, drawing on the disciplines of geography, linguistics, history, and anthropology. They include meticulous studies of historical records, and perspectives stemming from contemporary Indigenous communities. The book includes a wealth of documentary information on some 400 specific placenames, including those of Sydney Harbour, the Blue Mountains, Canberra, western Victoria, the Lake Eyre district, the Victoria River District, and southwestern Cape York Peninsula." -- Publisher description. Contents: Introduction: Old and new aspects of Indigenous place-naming /? Harold Koch and Luise Hercus NSW &? ACT: 1. Aboriginal placenames around Port Jackson and Botany Bay, New South Wales, Australia: sources and uncertainties /? Val Attenbrow 2. Reinstating Aboriginal placenames around Port Jackson and Botany Bay /? Jakelin Troy and Michael Walsh 3. The recognition of Aboriginal placenames in New South Wales /? Greg Windsor 4. New insights into Gundungurra place naming /? Jim Smith 5. The methodology of reconstructing Indigenous placenames: Australian Capital Territory and south-eastern New South Wales /? Harold Koch Victoria: 6. Toponymic books and the representation of Indigenous identities /? Laura Kostanski 7. Reviving old Indigenous names for new purposes /? Laura Kostanski and Ian D. Clark 8. Reconstruction of Aboriginal microtoponymy in western and central Victoria: case studies from Tower Hill, the Hopkins River, and Lake Boga /? Ian Clark South Australia &? Central Australia: 'Aboriginal names of places in southern South Australia': placenames in the Norman B.Tindale collection of papers /? Paul Monaghan 10. Why Mulligan is not just another Irish name: Lake Callabonna, South Australia /? J.C. McEntee 11. Murkarra, a landscape nearly forgotten: the Arabana country of the noxious insects, north and northwest of Lake Eyre /? Luise Hercus 12. Some area names in the far north-east of South Australia /? Luise Hercus 13. Placenames of central Australia: European records and recent experience /? Richard Kimber Northern Australia: 14. Naming Bardi places /? Claire Bowern 15. Dog-people: the meaning of a north Kimberley story /? Mark Clendon 16. 'Where the spear sticks up': the variety of locatives in placenames in the Victoria River District, Northern Territory /? Patrick McConvell 17. 'This place already has a name' /? Melanie Wilkinson, Dr R. Marika and Nancy M. Williams 18. Manankurra: what's in a name? placenames and emotional geographies /? John J. Bradley and Amanda Kearney 19. Kurtjar placenames /? Paul Black.Maps, b&w photographs, tables, word listsaustralian placenames, sociolinguistics, linguistics, anthropology, sydney harbour placenames, blue mountains placenames, canberra placenames, western victoria placenames, lake eyre placenames, victoria river district placenames, cape york peninsula placenames

Book. ALEC H CHISHOLM COLLECTION. 173 page soft cover book of Aboriginal myths retold by W. E. Harney and A. P. Elkin. B & W photo of a seated aboriginal on front cover. Published in 1949 by F. W. Cheshire, Melbourne and printed by Hawthorn Press, Melbourne. Catalogue sticker ''2231 HAR'' on spine.W. E. Harney & E. P Elkinbooks, collections, anthropology, alec h chisholm collection, aboriginal myths, w.e.harney, e.p.elkin

Dr Janice Newton has had a long term interest in Indigenous Studies and Aboriginality, and has published papers linking Aboriginality to the counterculture and to artists and musicians. She has published a paper commenting on Ballarat's response to the death in 1896 of King Billy, the so called 'last of his tribe'. Janice has recently taught courses on 'The Anthropology of Indigenous Art' and 'Indigenous History' at Federation University Australia.56 page soft covered booklet outlining the life of Ballarat's Mullawallah (also known as King Billy or Frank Wilson). Numerous photographs. The book 'Mullawallah: The Last King Billy of Ballarat' is an initiative of Victorian Interpretive Projects. It is available for purchase for $15.00 (additional for postage). Please email [email protected] for further details. Images include: Ercildoun, Lake Burrumbeet, Lal Lal Falls, William Buckley, Warrenheip, King Billy and his Camp in McCree's Paddock, King Billy and His Tribe, Carl Walter King Billy, Mary of Carngham, Rosa of Carngham, King Billy (Bullip Bullip), Queen Mary of Buninyong, Queen Marie of Ballarat, Queen Mary and King Billy and their original mia mia, Football at Ercildoune, Thomas Jerusalem, Samuel Wilson, Frank the last of the Ballarat Tribe, The Burial of King Billy, King Billy's Grave. mullawullah, frank wilson, king billy, aborigines, wathauwrung, wadawurrung, aboriginal, ercildoun, ercildoune, lake learmonth

Dr. Leonhard Adam studied both Anthropology and Jurisdiction as a young man. Dr. Leonhard Adam's daughter, Mary Clare Adam Murvitz, presented this collection of her Father's printed archival material to Tatura Museum on 17.2.2006. In 1934 he fled from Germany seeking refuge in England. In 1940 he was interned as a security risk in England, sent to Australia in June, 1940. Interned in Camp 2 until 1942, released to Melbourne University where he catalogued aboriginal artefacts.Grey soft cover booklet with black writing on the front.books, leonhard adam

Three quarto typed pages of relating to the closure of the Ballarat School of Mines Museum and the fate of the Pern Anthropological Collection. .1) Sydney Pern writes to the Principal of the Ballarat School of Mines, Dick Richards, asking for details relating to the closure of the Ballarat School of Mines Museum and the future of the Pern Aboriginal Weapon Collection. The correspondence is dated June 1957. .2) Ballarat School of Mines Principal, R.W. Richards responds to Dr Pern assuring him that nothing will happen to the collection without consultation. The correspondence is dated 06 June 1957. .3) Ballarat School of Mines Registrar, F.W. Ferguson, responds to Dr Pern on behalf of the Ballarat School of MInes Council, and again assured Dr Pern that nothing will happen to the collection without consultation.pern, sydney pern, aborigines, aboriginal, museum, ballarat school of mines museum, f.e. ferguson, r.w. richards, dick richards

This album depicts events, mostly the many picnics organised with the help of the Ladies Harbour Lights Guild from 1905 to 1910. Page 1: 1905 Page 2: Page 3: Page 4: Page 5: Page 6: This album is significant as it depicts all the work of Reverend Alfred Gurney Goldsmith. According to an article it seems Mrs Goldsmith was often the photographer. The first photographs shows the picnic in Graylings where the reverend invited Ethel Godfrey to create the Ladies Harbour Lights Guild. Gurney Goldsmith was the first reverend to document the life of the Mission using photography, as a marketing tool. Some of the photographs were published in the Jottings. And probably sent to the Head Office on London. It is also interesting as the photographs shows the life of seamen on board their ship, their clothing etc.See descriptions underneath most of the photographs. All the photographs are different numbers written in pencil at the back. Some numbers (from 1 to 4) were added probably later to reposition the photographs but the work was not systematically.reverend alfred gurney goldsmith, mrs goldsmith, mission to seamen, picnics, seamen, ships, lhlg, ethel augusta godfrey 1861-1935, hugh ronald reid, soccer, anthropology

mapsmallee region, south-eastern australia, geography, geology, climatology, water, agriculture, soils, botany, zoology, national parks, historical geography, australian literature, anthropology, sociology

Hetti Perkins introduces this collection of reproductions of of Western Arnhem Land bark paintings, rock art, woven fibre art and wooden sculpture that was exhibited by the Art Gallery of NSW in 2004, emphasising the cultural foundations of the Kuninjku artists, their beliefs, artistic conventions and innovations. The book includes interviews with traditional rock and bark artists (including some language), and essays describing the connection of the people to the land, their spiritual beliefs and their art. There are also reproductions of works on paper and woven forms and an essay on the role of women in producing these art forms. An essay by Professor Jon Altmann is entitled "Brokering Kuninjku Art: Artists, Institutions and the Market. A chronolgy details the history of aboriginal art in the area, there are biographies of the artists whose works were included in the exhibition, a list of the works themselves, a glossary of place names, art terms, aboriginal, linguistic and anthropological terms, and a select bibliography. The list of contributors includes, as well as the two mentioned above, Dr Murray Garde, Apolline Kohen, Steven Miller, Cara Pinchbeck and Dr Luke Taylor.Colour photographs

'Worlingworth', Eltham, home of noted anthropologist the late Professor Donald Thomson and his wife Dorita Thomson. Covered under Heritage Overlay, Nillumbik Planning Scheme. Published: Nillumbik Now and Then /​ Marguerite Marshall 2008; photographs Alan King with Marguerite Marshall.; p127 Dubbed as ‘Australia’s Lawrence of Arabia’ anthropologist Donald Thomson lived much of his life in Eltham, at Banoon Road. On his retirement as Professor of Anthropology in 1968, The University of Melbourne professorial board compared Thomson to Lawrence of Arabia because of his work for Aborigines and his controversial personality. Although Thomson is now recognised for his huge contribution, during his lifetime he suffered opposition and his life has been described as ‘tragic’.1 Thomson failed to gain the recognition as a scientist that he felt he deserved and he failed to alter government policy towards Aboriginal people. But towards the end of his life in 1970, anthropologists were moving towards the type of research he had done and the movement to grant land rights to Aborigines was strengthening. Thomson is best known for his anthropological fieldwork in Cape York, Arnhem Land and Central Australia, but he is also known for his scholarly contributions to ornithology and ecology. Thomson documented every aspect of the daily and ritual life of the Aboriginal world of Cape York and Arnhem Land in the 1930s and 1940s. The huge collection in Museum Victoria includes 11,000 photographs, 7500 items of material culture, 1000 botanical and zoological specimens and 4500 pages of field-notes.2 The film Ten Canoes used Thomson’s photographs as a source. Thomson bought the Eltham property known as Worlingworth in 1934. The single-storey 60-square house standing by the Yarra River was built in 1922-23. It is one of the last in Eltham to survive with its farm setting intact. It is also one of the few substantial residences built in the Eltham Shire from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, which signalled a major change in the area towards the residential municipality it is today.3 The original section, built in the mid 1860s, of rose pink hand-made bricks and stone quarried on the property, was incorporated in the new red-brick house built in 1922. An immense oak tree by the house grew from an acorn brought by Patrick Armstrong who first bought the land in March 14, 1862. Armstrong named Worlingworth after his forbears’ village in Suffolk, England. Worlingworth saw grand days when Commander Alan A Barlee (R.N.) bought it in 1922 after winning the Calcutta Sweep. The property then included a nine-hole golf course, a tennis court, a bowling green, a boathouse and a boat-ramp.4 For most of his career Thomson, who was born in 1901, was attached to The University of Melbourne. In 1935 he represented the Commonwealth Government at Caledon Bay in east Arnhem Land to investigate and mediate for four Aborigines accused of killing five Japanese and three Europeans. In 1938 Thomson was awarded a PhD in Anthropology at Cambridge University, and during his career, he received several medals from British Societies, who perhaps appreciated his work better than their Australian counterparts. From World War Two, Thomson suffered a string of hardships, beginning with severe wounding in Dutch New Guinea (for his military service in New Guinea he was awarded an OBE) and he was invalided from service in 1944. That year he was diagnosed with diabetes. A fire in 1946 destroyed what Thomson regarded as perhaps the best record he had made of Aboriginal life – the 20,000 feet, (6096m) of film he had shot in Arnhem Land. In 1954 he and wife, Gladys, divorced. The next year he married his technical assistant, Dorita McColl. Several times during his career Thomson had major disagreements. For instance Professor P Elkin constantly opposed his work. He also opposed Thomson when he campaigned vigorously in 1947 against the establishment of a rocket range at Woomera, South Australia, because of the threat it posed Aborigines. Thomson resigned in frustration from the Victorian Aborigines Welfare Board in 1967, after serving for ten years, because he found that his advice was disregarded. His ashes were scattered over Caledon Bay from the air.This collection of almost 130 photos about places and people within the Shire of Nillumbik, an urban and rural municipality in Melbourne's north, contributes to an understanding of the history of the Shire. Published in 2008 immediately prior to the Black Saturday bushfires of February 7, 2009, it documents sites that were impacted, and in some cases destroyed by the fires. It includes photographs taken especially for the publication, creating a unique time capsule representing the Shire in the early 21st century. It remains the most recent comprehenesive publication devoted to the Shire's history connecting local residents to the past. nillumbik now and then (marshall-king) collection, banoon road, donald thomson, dorita thomson, eltham, worlingworth

Historical work by the Secretary of the Board for the Protection of the Aborigines. (c.1876) He describes his approach to his work, the collection of language information, culture and heritage, anatomical data, drawings of the traditional lifestyles and encounters with the people. Includes interesting observations on the works of William Thomas, Alfred W, Howitt, Philip Chaney, Albert A.C. La Souef, John Moore Davis and Rev. William Ridley.robert brough smyth, anthropology, aboriginal social life and customs, children, behaviour, death and burial customs, daily life, food, diseases, weapons, shields, boomerang, vessels, baskets, message sticks, stone tool technology, fire, canoes, myths, stories

For almost 40 years, Michael Walsh has been working alongside Indigenous people: documenting language, music and other traditional knowledge, acting on behalf of claimants to land in the Northern Territory, and making crucial contributions to the revitalisation of Aboriginal languages in NSW. This volume, with contributions from his colleagues and students, celebrates his abiding interest in and commitment to Indigenous society with papers in two broad themes. ?Language, identity and country? addresses the often complex relations between Aboriginal social groups and countries, and linguistic identity. In ?Language, identity and social action? authors discuss the role that language plays in maintaining social identities in the realms of conversation, story-telling, music, language games, and in education. ?Language and Social Identity in Australian Indigenous Communities? will be of interest to students of linguistics, Indigenous studies, anthropology, and sociology. Contents: 1. Introduction /? Rod Gardner ... [et al.] 2. Michael Walsh : a personal reflection /? Ros Fraser 3. Place and property at Yintjingga/?Port Stewart under Aboriginal Law and Queensland Law /? Bruce Rigsby and Diane Hafner 4. Linguistic identities in the eastern Western Desert : the Tindale evidence /? Peter Sutton Juwaliny : dialectal variation and ethnolinguistic identity in the Great Sandy Desert /? Sally Dixon 6. Who were the 'Yukul'? and who are they now? /? Brett Baker 7. Colonisation and Aboriginal concepts of land tenure in the Darwin region /? Mark Harvey 8. Aboriginal languages and social groups in the Canberra region : interpreting the historical documentation /? Harold Koch 9. The Kuringgai puzzle : languages and dialects on the NSW Mid Coast /? Jim Wafer and Amanda Lissarrague 10. Dawes' Law generalised : cluster simplification in the coastal dialect of the Sydney language /? David Nash 11. Space, time and environment in Kala Lagaw Ya /? Lesley Stirling 12. Turn management in Garrwa mixed-language conversations /? Ilana Mushin and Rod Gardner 13. Laughter is the best medicine : roles for prosody in a Murriny Patha conversational narrative /? Joe Blythe 14. Collaborative narration and cross-speaker repetition in Umpila and Kuuku Ya'u /? Clair Hill 15. Co-narration of a Koko-Bera story : giants in Cape York Peninsula /? Paul BlackMaps, b&w photographs, charts, word listslanguage and identity, language maintenance, language and culture, language and country

'Whose Ethics?':Codifying and enacting ethics in research settings Bringing ethics up to date? A review of the AIATSIS ethical guidelines Michael Davis (Independent Academic) A revision of the AIATSIS Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies was carried out during 2009-10. The purpose of the revision was to bring the Guidelines up to date in light of a range of critical developments that have occurred in Indigenous rights, research and knowledge management since the previous version of the Guidelines was released in 2000. In this paper I present an outline of these developments, and briefly discuss the review process. I argue that the review, and the developments that it responded to, have highlighted that ethical research needs to be thought about more as a type of behaviour and practice between engaged participants, and less as an institutionalised, document-focused and prescriptive approach. The arrogance of ethnography: Managing anthropological research knowledge Sarah Holcombe (ANU) The ethnographic method is a core feature of anthropological practice. This locally intensive research enables insight into local praxis and culturally relative practices that would otherwise not be possible. Indeed, empathetic engagement is only possible in this close and intimate encounter. However, this paper argues that this method can also provide the practitioner with a false sense of his or her own knowing and expertise and, indeed, with arrogance. And the boundaries between the anthropologist as knowledge sink - cultural translator and interpreter - and the knowledge of the local knowledge owners can become opaque. Globalisation and the knowledge ?commons?, exemplified by Google, also highlight the increasing complexities in this area of the governance and ownership of knowledge. Our stronghold of working in remote areas and/or with marginalised groups places us at the forefront of negotiating the multiple new technological knowledge spaces that are opening up in the form of Indigenous websites and knowledge centres in these areas. Anthropology is not immune from the increasing awareness of the limitations and risks of the intellectual property regime for protecting or managing Indigenous knowledge. The relevance of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in opening up a ?rights-based? discourse, especially in the area of knowledge ownership, brings these issues to the fore. For anthropology to remain relevant, we have to engage locally with these global discourses. This paper begins to traverse some of this ground. Protocols: Devices for translating moralities, controlling knowledge and defining actors in Indigenous research, and critical ethical reflection Margaret Raven (Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy (ISTP), Murdoch University) Protocols are devices that act to assist with ethical research behaviour in Indigenous research contexts. Protocols also attempt to play a mediating role in the power and control inherent in research. While the development of bureaucratically derived protocols is on the increase, critiques and review of protocols have been undertaken in an ad hoc manner and in the absence of an overarching ethical framework or standard. Additionally, actors implicated in research networks are seldom theorised. This paper sketches out a typology of research characters and the different moral positioning that each of them plays in the research game. It argues that by understanding the ways actors enact research protocols we are better able to understand what protocols are, and how they seek to build ethical research practices. Ethics and research: Dilemmas raised in managing research collections of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander materials Grace Koch (AIATSIS) This paper examines some of the ethical dilemmas for the proper management of research collections of Indigenous cultural materials, concentrating upon the use of such material for Native Title purposes. It refers directly to a number of points in the draft of the revised AIATSIS Guidelines for Ethical Research in Indigenous Studies and draws upon both actual and hypothetical examples of issues that may arise when requests are made for Indigenous material. Specific concerns about ethical practices in collecting data and the subsequent control of access to both the data itself and to published works based upon it are raised within the context of several types of collections, including those held by AIATSIS and by Native Title Representative Bodies. Ethics or social justice? Heritage and the politics of recognition Laurajane Smith (ANU) Nancy Fraser?s model of the politics of recognition is used to examine how ethical practices are interconnected with wider struggles for recognition and social justice. This paper focuses on the concept of 'heritage' and the way it is often uncritically linked to 'identity' to illustrate how expert knowledge can become implicated in struggles for recognition. The consequences of this for ethical practice and for rethinking the role of expertise, professional discourses and disciplinary identity are discussed. The ethics of teaching from country Michael Christie (CDU), with the assistance of Yi?iya Guyula, Kathy Gotha and Dh�?gal Gurruwiwi The 'Teaching from Country' program provided the opportunity and the funding for Yol?u (north-east Arnhem Land Aboriginal) knowledge authorities to participate actively in the academic teaching of their languages and cultures from their remote homeland centres using new digital technologies. As two knowledge systems and their practices came to work together, so too did two divergent epistemologies and metaphysics, and challenges to our understandings of our ethical behaviour. This paper uses an examination of the philosophical and pedagogical work of the Yol?u Elders and their students to reflect upon ethical teaching and research in postcolonial knowledge practices. Closing the gaps in and through Indigenous health research: Guidelines, processes and practices Pat Dudgeon (UWA), Kerrie Kelly (Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association) and Roz Walker (UWA) Research in Aboriginal contexts remains a vexed issue given the ongoing inequities and injustices in Indigenous health. It is widely accepted that good research providing a sound evidence base is critical to closing the gap in Aboriginal health and wellbeing outcomes. However, key contemporary research issues still remain regarding how that research is prioritised, carried out, disseminated and translated so that Aboriginal people are the main beneficiaries of the research in every sense. It is widely acknowledged that, historically, research on Indigenous groups by non-Indigenous researchers has benefited the careers and reputations of researchers, often with little benefit and considerably more harm for Indigenous peoples in Australia and internationally. This paper argues that genuine collaborative and equal partnerships in Indigenous health research are critical to enable Aboriginal and Torres Islander people to determine the solutions to close the gap on many contemporary health issues. It suggests that greater recognition of research methodologies, such as community participatory action research, is necessary to ensure that Aboriginal people have control of, or significant input into, determining the Indigenous health research agenda at all levels. This can occur at a national level, such as through the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Road Map on Indigenous research priorities (RAWG 2002), and at a local level through the development of structural mechanisms and processes, including research ethics committees? research protocols to hold researchers accountable to the NHMRC ethical guidelines and values which recognise Indigenous culture in all aspects of research. Researching on Ngarrindjeri Ruwe/Ruwar: Methodologies for positive transformation Steve Hemming (Flinders University) , Daryle Rigney (Flinders University) and Shaun Berg (Berg Lawyers) Ngarrindjeri engagement with cultural and natural resource management over the past decade provides a useful case study for examining the relationship between research, colonialism and improved Indigenous wellbeing. The Ngarrindjeri nation is located in south-eastern Australia, a ?white? space framed by Aboriginalist myths of cultural extinction recycled through burgeoning heritage, Native Title, natural resource management ?industries?. Research is a central element of this network of intrusive interests and colonising practices. Government management regimes such as natural resource management draw upon the research and business sectors to form complex alliances to access funds to support their research, monitoring, policy development, management and on-ground works programs. We argue that understanding the political and ethical location of research in this contemporary management landscape is crucial to any assessment of the potential positive contribution of research to 'Bridging the Gap' or improving Indigenous wellbeing. Recognition that research conducted on Ngarrindjeri Ruwe/Ruwar (country/body/spirit) has impacts on Ngarrindjeri and that Ngarrindjeri have a right and responsibility to care for their lands and waters are important platforms for any just or ethical research. Ngarrindjeri have linked these rights and responsibilities to long-term community development focused on Ngarrindjeri capacity building and shifts in Ngarrindjeri power in programs designed to research and manage Ngarrindjeri Ruwe/Ruwar. Research agreements that protect Ngarrindjeri interests, including cultural knowledge and intellectual property, are crucial elements in these shifts in power. A preliminary review of ethics resources, with particular focus on those available online from Indigenous organisations in WA, NT and Qld Sarah Holcombe (ANU) and Natalia Gould (La Trobe University) In light of a growing interest in Indigenous knowledge, this preliminary review maps the forms and contents of some existing resources and processes currently available and under development in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia, along with those enacted through several cross-jurisdictional initiatives. A significant majority of ethics resources have been developed in response to a growing interest in the application of Indigenous knowledge in land and natural resource management. The aim of these resources is to ?manage? (i.e. protect and maintain) Indigenous knowledge by ensuring ethical engagement with the knowledge holders. Case studies are drawn on from each jurisdiction to illustrate both the diversity and commonality in the approach to managing this intercultural engagement. Such resources include protocols, guidelines, memorandums of understanding, research agreements and strategic plans. In conducting this review we encourage greater awareness of the range of approaches in practice and under development today, while emphasising that systematic, localised processes for establishing these mechanisms is of fundamental importance to ensuring equitable collaboration. Likewise, making available a range of ethics tools and resources also enables the sharing of the local and regional initiatives in this very dynamic area of Indigenous knowledge rights.b&w photographs, colour photographsngarrindjeri, ethics, ethnography, indigenous research, social justice, indigenous health

Built by artist and cartoonist Percy Leason in 1927 in what was then New Street but renamed Lavender Park Road in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Covered under Heritage Overlay, Nillumbik Planning Scheme. Published: Nillumbik Now and Then /​ Marguerite Marshall 2008; photographs Alan King with Marguerite Marshall.; p121 Said to be a genius, cartoonist Percy Leason’s career was at its peak when in 1925 to 1926 he built his home at New Street (now Lavender Park Road) Eltham. The Herald newspaper owner, Sir Keith Murdoch, had hired Leason for his newly acquired Melbourne Punch magazine at a salary of £1750, making him ‘one of the highest paid cartoonists in the world’.1 With this salary and financial help from Murdoch, Leason was able to build his lovely home in Eltham. At the crest of a sweeping drive, the home now two-storey in white brick with a gabled grey slate roof and dormer windows is flanked by an extension built by another owner in the 1980s. Leason lived in the home with his wife, Isabel and children, until 1937, when he left for the United States of America, where he lived until his death in 1959. The four-bedroom house and garden would have been well-suited to bringing up his family and to entertaining their friends in style. Large airy rooms have high ceilings with moulded plaster, timber floors and several are brightened with bay windows. Leason made friends with many of the artists and personalities who gravitated to Eltham. Around 1931 Justus Jörgensen, founder of the Montsalvat Artists’ Colony, helped Leason build his large studio at the back of the house. Another friend was journalist Mervyn Skipper, father of jeweller and sculptor Matcham, and artists Helen and Sonia. Leason’s teacher, artist Max Meldrum, also visited and rented accommodation in Eltham, opposite Wingrove Park. Punch folded in 1925, but Leason continued as cartoonist for Table Talk. In 1926 Leason began the cartoons of a mythical Australian town Wiregrass, which were inspired by Kaniva, his home town. The art gallery in Main Road Eltham was named Wiregrass in Leason’s honour. Leason completed 1000 drawings from 1919 to 1937, which author Garrie Hutchinson claimed, were technically unsurpassed and had regional and universal interest. Leason’s acute observations of country life stemmed from his childhood in Kaniva in Victoria’s western Wimmera, where he was born, the son of a selector, in 1889. Meldrum claimed that Leason could name every plant and the habits of every animal.2 Leason also painted 28 portraits of the last full-blooded aboriginals in Victoria at Lake Tyers in Gippsland, most of which are in a private collection. In Sydney Leason illustrated Henry Lawson’s Selected Poems and worked for The Bulletin. Leason had begun his career at 13 as an apprentice lithographic artist at Sands and MacDougall. He attended night classes at the National Gallery and the Victorian Artists Society. Leason first visited Eltham in 1910 to paint with fellow artist William ‘Jock’ Frater. They camped near Bible and Pitt Streets and along the Diamond Creek on the site of the present Eltham Retirement Centre. Despite his success as a cartoonist, Leason wanted to be recognised as a serious painter and for his anthropological work.3 He was also conservative and felt uncomfortable with the modern art scene in Melbourne.4 So he left for the United States of America to work as a painter. Ironically his time in New York saw the burgeoning of modern art, notably by artists such as Jackson Pollock. But Leason found his niche by running an art school, painting society portraits and illustrating books and magazines.This collection of almost 130 photos about places and people within the Shire of Nillumbik, an urban and rural municipality in Melbourne's north, contributes to an understanding of the history of the Shire. Published in 2008 immediately prior to the Black Saturday bushfires of February 7, 2009, it documents sites that were impacted, and in some cases destroyed by the fires. It includes photographs taken especially for the publication, creating a unique time capsule representing the Shire in the early 21st century. It remains the most recent comprehenesive publication devoted to the Shire's history connecting local residents to the past. nillumbik now and then (marshall-king) collection, landscape, lavender park road, percy leason, new street