Adelaide (AKA ‘Radelaide’) has more to offer than transport museums, of course. On my last day there I had a look at the South Australian Museum, as well as some of the nearby sights. This copy of a Venus by Antonio Canova was apparently somewhat controversial when presented to the city in 1892, though she […]
After the AHA, I stayed in Adelaide for a few days to see the sights. I have a bit of a thing for maritime museums, so the South Australian Maritime Museum at Port Adelaide was an obvious choice. It became even more obvious when I discovered that the National Railway Museum and the South Australian
Last week, the Australian Historical Association held its 31st annual conference, hosted by the University of Adelaide. The last time I was at an AHA was in 2008 (I didn’t have to go far, since it was in Melbourne); it seems to have got bigger since then. Around four hundred delegates, if memory serves; up
So the Australian Historical Association conference is next week. My slot is on the Thursday, the session before lunch. I’ve written the article and as I predicted it was a tight squeeze. In fact I’m not sure if it’s trying to be too much and consequently is not enough. But the good thing about this
If the threat from Germans outside Australia during the First World War was small, the threat from Germans inside Australia was non-existent. There is no credible evidence at all of any espionage, subversion or sabotage activities by German-Australians. But you wouldn’t know it from the way the Australian people and their government behaved. It’s not
It’s been more than two weeks since I’ve posted anything on my current mystery aeroplane research, but it’s not because I haven’t been working on it. In fact it is coming along pretty well. There are still some frustrating gaps in my understanding of the archival records, but the writing is coming along. I’ve written
It has happened before that while I’m focused on some research topic but read something seemingly unrelated, that unanticipated connections serendipitously appear between the two. In this case it was while reading a collection of short stories by Arthur Machen, an influential writer of supernatural horror who wrote his greatest, and most disturbing, works in
So, to the mystery aeroplane sceptics. Again, there are some sceptical opinions to be found in the press and police reports, but relatively few. Very early on, the Age, one of Melbourne’s leading newspapers, wrote on 25 March 1918 that the defence authorities are inclined to laugh at the story told by Police Constable Wright,
What did Australians in 1918 make of the mystery aeroplane scare? What did they think the aeroplanes meant? This is a question I’ve already answered in part. There is evidence from the press that in the days before 24 April wild rumours were circulating that Australia was about to be attacked somehow by German raiders,
If the wave of reports of mystery aeroplanes after late April 1918 wasn’t sustained by newspaper reports (i.e. because there were none) then how was it sustained? Why did people from all over Australia come to hold the same belief, that German aircraft were filling the skies? There are several possible explanations. One is that
