Members Night

Dane McCormack - His Story

This talk will focus on how to use stories to deepen people's interest and understanding of history. This applies to both the writer and the reader. Dane will use examples of how he has used stories in his writing.

Dane McCormack was born and raised in Tasmania. He escaped to the mainland to pursue his career and has worked on the factory floor gaining a trade certificate in Precision Manufacture, as well as in the boardrooms of multinational firms developing Business Strategies. His love of writing was reawakened as he explored how he survived and thrived through a recent cancer journey. After being given 24 hours to live several times and losing his long-term memories, he set out on a quest to retrieve them and wrote his autobiography. It emphasised just how important history is, because it made him who he was, helping him to survive and thrive. This is why he writes history with a personal connection. Dane finds an historically important location or activity, and then relates its history with the story of his own history there. 

Russ Gloster - The Mysterious Mrs Prinsep and The Old Wharf

This presentation investigates the Journal of a Voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen’s Land, published by Elizabeth Prinsep in 1833. This was the first journal of its type to be published about Tasmania by a woman, and only the second about Australia.  It is also unique, having an assortment of prints which show well-known aspects of Southeast Asia and Van Diemen’s Land. The Journal was laid out with eight letters as chapters and has been used from time to time as a reference source for descriptions of VDL as it was perceived by the couple. However, the presumed writer of the letters leaves many unanswered questions by omitting some important characters in their life.  Many people are vaguely identified by a single letter, or only an inference. The author has created an illusion, making it difficult to tell fact from fiction.

Russ Gloster was born in the historic central Victorian town of Kyneton, where the portable classrooms of the secondary school overlooked the pastures of the earliest Victorian squatters. His family originally settled in Hobart in 1834 and moved to Victoria in the 1850s. He was educated at the University of Melbourne studying Mathematics, Statistics and the only tertiary course available at the time involving computers. In the latter part of his career in the ever-evolving world of technology he had spent almost 20 years in fraud and money-laundering, on the right side of the bench. His experience enabled him to delve into, and analyse, the subject of this project.

Brendan Bowes - Track into splendour: building the Tasman Coastal Trail by the Hobart Walking Club 1972 - 1982

Brendan will describe how volunteers spent a decade building by hand a 17km wilderness walking track and the reasons for this public contribution.

Brendon Bowes has a lifelong interest in researching and writing about Tasmanian history, with a focus on maritime matters and outdoor recreation, with numerous articles published in magazines and newspapers since 1993.  He is the Vice President and archivist of the Hobart Walking Club and works for the Department of Justice.

Image: SP Hill, c1850, Old Wharf Hobart Town. Courtesy Allport Library & Museum of Fine Arts