Historian who put colonial frontier violence on the map dies at 81

LYNDALL RYAN: 1943 - 2024

Professor Lyndall Ryan was a starring Australian historiographer who showed that alternatively than being rare, massacres were a cardinal instrumentality of colonisation and acold much extended than antecedently realised.

She died connected April 30 astatine Lake Macquarie Private Hospital successful Gateshead, NSW, aged 81.

Lyndall Ryan with her representation showing the determination of indigenous massacres.

Her PhD thesis connected Tasmanian Aboriginal past began to beryllium published successful nonfiction signifier successful the aboriginal 1970s and pushed backmost connected the story of Tasmanian assemblage past that Truganini was the past of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people.

This probe ran successful parallel with her engagement successful 2nd question feminism. In this arena, Ryan was a founding subordinate of the archetypal Sydney Women’s Liberation Group successful 1970 and a contributor to feminist publications. During this play she besides became progressive successful the Leichhardt Women’s Health Centre, an inaugural that led to a lifelong involvement successful women’s reproductive health.

Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre by Jane Lydon and Lyndall Ryan.

Ryan’s groundbreaking monograph, The Aboriginal Tasmanians (1981), based connected her 1975 PhD thesis, changed the look of Australian history. A classic, it was expanded into a 2nd variation (1996) that incorporated caller research. Subsequent assistance and contention shaped an epic caller work, Tasmanian Aborigines: A History Since 1803 (2012), shortlisted for the Ernest Scott Award successful 2013.

As her semipermanent person and historiographer Professor Ann Curthoys noted successful a precocious published tribute, Ryan had a “strong consciousness of spot and the value of maps successful helping readers link events to circumstantial places”, evidenced by the 33 elaborate maps successful her thesis. This accent connected maps would fig prominently successful her aboriginal career.

Ryan was calved during the Second World War and spent her teenage years connected the household poultry workplace successful the expanding occidental suburbs. Her parent Edna, a salient feminist, was a dedicated advocator for adjacent wage for women and a cardinal power connected her daughter. A keen netball player, Lyndall excelled astatine Fairfield Girls High School and was awarded a Commonwealth assistance to the University of Sydney, aft which she took up aft a twelvemonth of clerical enactment successful 1961.

After clip arsenic Manning Clark’s probe adjunct from 1966-68, she joined the Australian Public Service arsenic a argumentation expert successful 1974. Here she worked connected the children’s committee and successful the bureau of women’s affairs wrong the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, wherever she could power argumentation connected childcare, women’s refuges and assemblage wellness centres. After the fall of the Whitlam government successful 1975, Ryan began a distinguished world vocation spanning much than 4 decades.

An emeritus prof astatine the University of Newcastle, she antecedently held world appointments astatine 3 Australian universities, opening successful 1977 successful the schoolhouse of humanities astatine Griffith University, aboriginal taking up enactment roles arsenic a prof successful women’s studies astatine Flinders University and instauration prof of Australian studies astatine the University of Newcastle, wherever she was besides caput of schoolhouse successful humanities.

“Whitlam Supergirls” Dany Torsh, Eva Cox, Suzanne Baker, Anne Summers, Elizabeth Reid and Ryan successful 1973.Credit: Canberra Times

She was a person successful the processing tract of Australian women’s history, taking a presumption archetypal arsenic scholar and past prof of women’s studies astatine Flinders University betwixt 1986 and 1998. This play was notable for cardinal publications connected abortion, women’s magazines and her Bibliography of Australian Women’s History (with Susan Magarey, 1990).

Ryan became a people successful what were known arsenic the Australian history wars of the aboriginal 2000s erstwhile her critics downplayed the relation of assemblage frontier unit successful Australian history. Ryan’s ain effect to the past wars was what Curthoys called “a rigorous, public-facing survey of frontier unit and massacres”, initially successful Tasmania and past crossed the continent. She helped to amusement that alternatively than being rare, massacre was a cardinal instrumentality of colonisation and acold much extended than historians had antecedently realised. Ryan felt that cartography provided the champion means for a wider assemblage to work the results of this research, identifying location, discourse and sources of evidence. By degrees, the integer massacre representation emerged.

Based astatine the University of Newcastle, the interactive online representation was created and co-curated by Ryan and a squad of scholars. Stage 4 of the task was completed successful 2022, with an updated estimation of much than 400 frontier massacres that took spot from the late-18th done to the early-20th centuries. The representation attracted planetary attraction and designation followed.

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Described arsenic “nation defining”, and arsenic “a cartographic memorial, a shimmering grounds to a motivation information which is astatine erstwhile overwhelming and undeniable”, the representation won a slew of large honours successful 2018/19: the Australian & New Zealand Cartographic Society’s GeoCart Award for Best Digital Map; the NSW Premier’s History Award for Digital History, and the Walkley Award for Indigenous Affairs Reporting, shared with the Guardian Australia squad that produced The Killing Times.

As a historiographer of violence, Ryan co-edited respective ground-breaking anthologies specified arsenic Theatres of Violence (with Philip Dwyer, 2012), Remembering the Myall Creek Massacre (with Jane Lydon, 2018) and Aftermaths: Colonialism, Violence and Memory successful Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific (with Angela Wanhalla and Camille Nurka, 2023).

Violent Empires: Killing and Colonialism successful the Age of Revolution, 1780-1820, a publication co-authored with Philip Dwyer, Barbara Mann and Nigel Penn, is scheduled for work successful 2025.
In the last weeks of her life, Ryan was moving connected a publication astir her mother’s contributions to feminism and the labour movement.

In caller years, Ryan gained galore awards. In 2018, she was elected a chap of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and successful 2019 became a subordinate of the Order of Australia. The grant citations recognised her outstanding publication to higher education, peculiarly to Indigenous past and women’s studies. A Festschrift successful precocious 2020 astatine the University of Newcastle featuring presenters from each parts of her world vocation testified to the breadth and extent of her intelligence beingness and its wide influences. She was a recipient of 1 of the Australian Academy of the Humanities’ inaugural beingness accomplishment awards successful 2022.

She was cardinal to the enlargement of interdisciplinary approaches to the past and present, which she had archetypal developed done her station astatine Griffith University. Ryan besides played an instrumental relation successful shaping the University of Newcastle’s frontier field connected the NSW Central Coast astatine Ourimbah.

As caput of schoolhouse she was visionary, innovative and a champion of interdisciplinarity, envisioning it arsenic a captious instrumentality for colleagues to hole students for a changing future. Her imaginativeness and enactment were besides captious successful linking the originative arts with the section assemblage connected the Central Coast.

Ryan was besides known for her emotion of fashion, which she reinvented to make her ain style: a penchant for the colour reddish and the occasional quirky accessory, sometimes accompanied by a stylish hat. She was besides fond of the unusual fancy dress, testifying to her wry consciousness of humour and her whimsical broadside arsenic good arsenic her quality not to instrumentality herself excessively seriously.

One of her large talents laic successful making and nurturing friendships, arsenic good arsenic successful creating networks successful some her idiosyncratic and nonrecreational life. A subordinate of a tiny radical of six friends forged successful the elder years of precocious school, these friendships endured for a beingness notwithstanding geographical distance. Two of those friends, Gabrielle and Jeanette, were astatine her bedside successful the last days.

An outpouring of heavy respect for Lyndall Ryan the pistillate and student followed her passing. Professor Alan Lester from the University of Sussex noted: “Her enactment connected the frontier massacres representation volition ever beryllium a vindication of information telling successful history.”

Ryan was was visionary, innovative and a champion of interdisciplinarity.

Long-term person Professor Anne Summers lamented: “Such a loss. Such a superb mind. And a bully amusive friend.” Others did not cognize her personally but were nevertheless profoundly influenced by her work. “Glad to person the brightness of research, evidence, compassion, justness that Ryan forged and represents to bent onto successful these times.”

As the Australian Historical Association perceptively noted: “Few successful our assemblage person had a greater interaction connected the mode Australians recognize their corporate past.”

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