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The 2024 Victorian Community History Awards were presented at the Langham in Melbourne on the 24th of March 2025 by Public Record Office Victoria in partnership with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. See below for the full list of winners and commendations:

Victorian Premier's History Award

  • WINNER Letters to a Critic: Alan McCulloch’s World of Art by Rodney James

Collaborative Community History Award winner and commendations

  • WINNER Wallace Avenue Community Park Inverloch: A Short History by J.M. Anderson
  • Kal Angam-Kal: Stories from West Papua by Cyndi Makabory, Yasbelle Kerkow and Folole Tupuola
  • The Years of Terror. Banbu-deen. Kulin and Colonists at Port Phillip 1835-1851 by Dr Marguerita Stephens and Fay Stewart-Muir OAM

Local History Project Award winner and commendations

  • WINNER Albert Park. Bridport St and Beyond by Middle Park and Albert Park History Group
  • Dhoombak Goobgoowana: A History of Indigenous Australia and the University of Melbourne – Volume 1: Truth by Dr Ross L Jones, Dr James Waghorne and Distinguished Professor Dr Marcia Langton AO
  • Plaques documenting the fishing families of the Queenscliff Fisherman’s Flat Reserve by The Fisherman’s Flat Fishermen and Families Study Group (in association with the Queenscliffe Historical Museum)

Small Organisation History Project Award winner 

  • WINNER Knowledge is Power: A History of Yallourn Technical School 1928-1993 by Graham Goulding 

History Publication Award winner and commendations

  • WINNER Victoria’s Earliest Porcelain Works: Art Pottery, Crockery and Insulators by Gregory Hill 
  • Whistles Through the Tall Timber: Warburton – Powelltown – Noojee by Nick Anchen
  • Kondak: William Buckley Revealed: Victoria’s First European Resident and Conciliator by Paul Cougle
  • Along the Road to Gundagai, Biography of Jack O’Hagan and Birth of Australian Pop Culture by Jo Gilbert
  • Aspects of Wonthaggi’s History Through Street and Place Names by Wonthaggi and District Historical Society and Sebastian J. ‘Sam’ Gatto
  • The Cranbourne Meteorite by Sean Murphy
  • Thomas Hannay: Travelling Photographer in the Colony of Victoria, 1858-1859 by Geoff Corner with Friends of the Vern McCallum Collection

Small History Publication Award winner and commendations

  • WINNER River to Bay: Victoria’s Maritime History by Carole Wilkinson and Prue Pittock
  • The Woodlanders of Walden Hut by Janice Newton with Karen Phillips, Paula Herlihy OAM and Mount Evelyn History Group
  • Revealing Stories. The Hidden History of the Performing Arts Scene in Geelong by Janine Barrand and Dianna Wells
  • Down the Line Racecourses: Richfield, Mentone, Epsom, Aspendale by John Macnaughtan
  • The Standard: History and Heritage of the Benambra, Ensay, Omeo, Swifts Creek Districts by Debra Squires and Omeo Historical Society

Digital Storytelling Award winner and commendations

  • WINNER Faces of Peace, Video Storytelling Project – Central Victoria’s Peacekeepers, Peacemakers and Peacebuilders by Bendigo Military Museum
  • Extraordinary/Ordinary by Lisa D’Onofrio
  • What’s in the Box? By Bendigo Historical Society

Community Diversity Award winner and commendations

  • WINNER The Pioneering Jews of the Ballaarat Goldfields by Keira Quinn Lockyer
  • Personal Politics: Sexuality, Gender and the Remaking of Citizenship in Australia by Leigh Boucher, Barbara Baird, Michelle Arrow, Robert Reynolds
  • Transgender Australia: A History Since 1910 by Noah Riseman
  • A Secretive Century: Monte Punshon’s Australia by Tessa Morris-Suzuki

Oral History Award winner and commendations (presented in collaboration with Oral History Victoria)

  • WINNER Women, Conscription, War by Alexandra Pierce
  • Remembering Ash Wednesday: An Oral History of the 1983 Bushfires in Aireys Inlet and District by Alexander Watkins
  • In the Footsteps by Melbourne Holocaust Museum, lead curator Jayne Josem
  • The People’s Movement: The Birth of Selby Community House by Selby Community House and commissioned creators, filmmakers Tadji Ulrich, Lia Hills, and podcast producer Riley Jordan

History Interpretation Award winner and commendations

  • WINNER ‘Back to School’: A History of Local Schools in Heidelberg 1851-2000 by Heidelberg Historical Society
  • Resisting Conscription in World War I by Australian Living Peace Museum in conjunction with Soundtrails
  • Walking Early Box Hill by Box Hill Historical Society

History Article Award winner and commendations

  • WINNER ‘A Community in Crisis: Dr Deery and the Healesville Hospital Dispute, 1961-62’ by Phillip Deery for the Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 94, no. 2, 2023
  • “The Fencer’s Manual” and William Clarson: the Publishers Tale by Andrew Lemon in the Journal of the C J La Trobe Society, vol. 22, no. 3, 2023
  • “Unemployed Breadwinners” and “Working Mothers”: Male Breadwinner Nostalgia and the 1990s Recession in Australia by Joshua Black in Australian Historical Studies, vol. 54, no. 3, 2023 
  • “Mining the Yarrowee: Environmental Change on the Ballarat Goldfield by Susan Lawrence, Peter Davies, Greg Hil, Ian Rurtherfurd, James Grove, Jodi Turnbull and Mark Macklin (The Rivers of Gold research team) in the Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 94, no. 2, 2023
    “The Unusual Australian Football Scoring System: Six Behinds to a Goal” by Graham Pilkington for the Victorian Historical Journal, vol. 95, no. 1, 2024
     

Resources

2024 Event photographs
2024 Awards booklet
2024 Media release
 

The Victorian Community History Awards are supported by the Victorian Government.