Blackheath History Forum

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The Blackheath History Forum Inc endeavors to highlight 'the past in the present' by presenting an annual series of talks from engaging speakers.

We are not an historical society. The Blackheath History Forum is open to anyone interested in understanding Australian history in both its national and global contexts. Our aim is to highlight ‘the past in the present’. OUR 2022 PROGRAM WILL BE POSTED SOON! For our 2021 season, the Blackheath History Forum continued online recording as many of the talks as possible. They are posted to our YouTube channel. In addition to our regular program, this year there were also some book launches that were held at Gardner’s Inn with a start time of 4pm. For full details check out the 2021 program page. on our website https://blackheathhistoryforum.org.au

Past speakers have included many of Australia’s leading historians, including Henry Reynolds, Judith Brett, Jenny Hocking, Stuart MacIntyre, Mark McKenna, and Humphrey McQueen. We’ve also hosted writers with strong historical interests like Tom Keneally, Paul Kelly, and Don Watson. BHF FACEBOOK PAGE GUIDELINES
We look forward to open and friendly conversations on our FB Page, and while points of view may differ we request that all participants treat each other with respect. This means that derogatory, defamatory or discriminatory comments are not acceptable on the BHF Page. BHF reserves the right to moderate or delete comments that we believe to be inappropriate. We do not accept obscene or offensive material or comments, advertisements or commercial material. Overall, all material must comply with Facebook’s Terms of Use.

28/10/2026

The final Forum for the year is THIS SUNDAY! Come and join us for a drink to hear Sean Scalmer talk about his book: A Fair Day's Work. As we reflect on our working lives, do we think that the current generation of workers have it easier ... or harder?

on SUNDAY 1 NOVEMBER 4-6pm
at Gardners Inn

Tickets at the door or book online.

The length of the working day and the challenges of work-life balance are pressing issues for many Australians, as well as lively matters of public controversy. In this talk, Sean Scalmer surveys the history of the struggle over working time, from the battles that secured an eight-hour day and a full weekend, to contemporary conflicts over the right to disconnect and working from home. The talk will chronicle significant changes, seek to explain these shifts in working time, and contemplate the possibilities and obstacles to future change.

Sean Scalmer is the author of seven books in Australian and transnational history, including most recently: A Fair Day’s Work: The Quest to Win Back Time (2025). He is a Professor of History at the University of Melbourne

A Fair Day's Work: An Australian History

23/10/2026

"Playtime is a history of Australian Childhood. It is also a history of the imagination, of play and creativity, fantasy and and folklore."

Emily Gallagher will be speaking about her book Playtime: A History of Australian Childhood this Saturday.

Saturday, 24 Oct, 4pm – 6pm Blackheath Public School
Book through Humanitix or pay at the door. Eftpos and cash are accepted.

Hall Entry: $10 Waged; $5.00 Unwaged,
Afternoon tea from 3.30pm ($3 coffee/tea, $3 cake)

https://events.humanitix.com/emily-gallagher-playtime-a-history-of-australian-childhood

30/09/2026

If you missed out on Geraldine Fela's moving talk on 'Critical Care Nurses on the Frontline of Australia's AIDS Crisis' here is her interview with BHF member Hannah Forsyth.

The claim that real change is enabled by grassroots, community-based movements might seem a distant ideal, but Dr Geraldine Fela shows such assertions are far from hypothetical. Critical Care: Nurses on the Frontline of Australia's AIDS Crisis shows that grassroots movements were what made Australia’s response to the AIDS epidemic better than elsewhere. HIV and AIDS devastated communities across Australia in the 1980s and 1990s. In the midst of this profound health crisis, nurses provided crucial care to those living with and dying from the virus. They negotiated homophobia and complex family dynamics as well as defending the rights of their patients. Bringing together stories from across the country, historian Geraldine Fela documents the extraordinary care, compassion and solidarity shown by HIV and AIDS nurses. Critical Care unearths the important and unexamined history of nurses and nursing unions as caregivers and political agents who helped shape Australia's response to HIV and AIDS.

27/09/2026

Emily Gallagher is the penultimate speaker for the BHF 2026 season on Saturday, 24 Oct, 4pm at the Blackheath Public School.

Wattle fairies, talking magpies, excursions to the South Pole, unbreakable dolls, flesh-eating monsters, and toddler kings. Is there anywhere the childhood imagination cannot take us? In her recent book Playtime, Emily Gallagher explores children’s play and imaginative lives in the half-century before the Second World War. Often overlooked in Australian history, children were a significant demographic group throughout this period, and they deserve to be taken seriously as historical subjects. This talk will explore some of the creative and surprising ways that young people navigated their changing world. It is a story about young dreamers and aspiring journalists, old schoolrooms and backyard cubbies, war and modernity, and the enduring power of the imagination to defy the routine and powerlessness of everyday life.

Dr Emily Gallagher is a historian at the Australian National University. She began her career as a teacher in Sydney before deciding to pursue her passion for history and writing in Canberra. Playtime: A History of Australian Childhood (La Trobe, 2025) is her first book. Emily is also a research editor for the Australian Dictionary of Biography and a research fellow on an ARC-funded project writing the first history of grandparenting in Australia.

Book through Humanitix or pay at the door. Eftpos and cash are accepted.
https://events.humanitix.com/emily-gallagher-playtime-a-history-of-australian-childhood

Hall Entry: $10 Waged; $5.00 Unwaged,
Afternoon tea from 3.30pm ($3 coffee/tea, $3 cake)

15/09/2026

You are invited to a Farewell event for
Hilary Hughes & Gary Werskey,
including
A Silent Auction of Hilary’s & Gary’s collection
of paintings by local artists. View them here:
https://heathenschoir.org/silent-auction/

All proceeds to be donated to:
The Heathens Choir
Blackheath History Forum
Rhytmstix African Drumming Group

Wednesday, 30 September 2026, 5.30–7.00 pm
Gardners Inn, 255 Great Western Highway
Refreshments provided

Please RSVP:
[email protected]

13/09/2026

BHF had two excellent speakers for History week, which finishes today.

First, Naomi Parry Duncan spoke at the Blackheath Public School hall about Writing the Life of Musquito, one of the best-known First Nations resistance warriors of the early colonies, and her discovery of how her own convict ancestors were entangled in his story.

Secondly, at Gardner's Inn Geraldine Fela in her award winning 'Blood Politics: Nurses and Australia’s AIDS crisis' - related the important and unexamined history of nurses and nursing unions as caregivers and political agents who helped shape Australia’s response to HIV and AIDS.

We have just 2 more speakers before the season end, so check out our website for topics and bookings.
https://blackheathhistoryforum.org.au/2026-2/

20/08/2026

Emily Gallagher has been Highly commended for the State Library of NSW 2026 Australian History Prize. She will be speaking about her book "Playtime: A History of Australian Childhood on Sat, 24 Oct, 4pm – 6pm at Blackheath Public School.
https://events.humanitix.com/emily-gallagher-playtime-a-history-of-australian-childhood

Judges' comment

Playtime is a thoroughly unique and interesting piece of history. It focuses on the experiences and voices of Australian children from 1890 until the World War II through the lens of their imaginations. Influenced by scholarship that privileges children’s voices, Playtime sits at the intersection of histories of childhood, reading, education and folklore.

Playtime is innovative on numerous levels—methodologically by looking at school publications, community and family collections, drawings and folklore. Emily Gallagher describes an exhaustive search for sources through small schoolhouse museums, local history societies and the often-overlooked archives of juvenilia and children’s writing in state libraries and university collections. Engagingly written with real joy, Gallagher’s findings excite the reader. Historians of childhood often say that it is hard to recover children's voices from history—but Playtime does that and represents a significant new intervention in Australian social and cultural history.

19/08/2026

Our second Histroy Week event is Geraldine Fela - Blood Politics: Nurses and Australia’s AIDS crisis at Gardners Inn, Blackheath on Sunday 13th September, at 4:00 pm.

In the 1980s and 1990s, HIV and AIDS devastated communities across Australia. In the midst of this profound health crisis, nurses provided crucial care to those living with and dying from the virus. They negotiated homophobia and complex family dynamics and defended the rights of their patients. Bringing together stories from across the country, Critical Care: Nurses on the frontline of Australia's AIDS crisis unearths the important and unexamined history of nurses and nursing unions as caregivers and political agents who helped shape Australia’s response to HIV and AIDS.

Dr Geraldine Fela is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Humanities at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. Her research and teaching traverses histories of gender and sexuality, labour, social movements and medicine. Her first book, Critical Care: Nurses on the frontline of Australia’s AIDS crisis was published by UNSW Press in July 2024. In 2025, Critical Care was awarded the Prime Minister's Literary Award in the category of Australian history, and was shortlisted in the NSW History Awards.

Pub talks – $15 (includes one drink),
https://events.humanitix.com/geraldine-fela

17/08/2026

On September 5th at 4pm in the Blackheath Public School Hall Naomi Parry Duncan will be speaking about writing the Life of Musquito, one of the best-known First Nations resistance fighters of the early colonies. This is also an event for History Week 2026 - Keeping Stories.

Musquito's story was shrouded in misinformation and myth. Naomi has uncovered the real story of this remarkable man. Searching the archives for the smallest fragments of evidence, she realised the lives of convicts in her family tree intersected with Musquito in disturbing ways.

Naomi Parry Duncan specialises in First Nations history and family history. She grew up in Tasmania and is president of the History Council of NSW, and an adjunct researcher at the University of Tasmania and Western Sydney University. She is co-author of New South Wales and the Great War, and winner of the 2022 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship.

Bookings can be made online and tickets can be purchased at the door.
https://events.humanitix.com/naomi-parry-duncan-writing-the-life-of-musquito

17/08/2026

History Week 2026 Events

This year BHF has two events for 2026 HISTORY WEEK: Keeping Stories. Australians are renowned for spinning a good yarn but how do stories keep history alive and what do they tell us about ourselves?

We are living in a rapidly changing world, of global conflict and heightened security concerns, at the same time we are facing a crisis in university education and the domestic pressure to develop our cities and towns to create more housing. How do we keep the stories that matter to our communities?

Naomi Parry Duncan – Writing the Life of Musquito - Sat 5th Sep 2026 4:00 pm, Blackheath Public School

Geraldine Fela – Blood Politics: Nurses and Australia’s AIDS crisis
Sun 13th Sep 2026, Gardners Inn, Blackheath,

Bookings for both events can be made online:
https://events.humanitix.com/naomi-parry-duncan-writing-the-life-of-musquito
https://events.humanitix.com/geraldine-fela

Address

Blue Mountains National Park, NSW
2785

Website

https://blackheathhistoryforum.org.au/

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