Richard Broome

Biography

Professor Richard Broome lectured at La Trobe University from 1977-81 before becoming a commissioned historian, writing Arriving (1984) and Coburg: Between Two Creeks (1987). He returned to La Trobe in 1987, being appointed Reader/Associate Professor in 1992. He served on the History Institute of Victoria board for 10 years, being President 1995-96; was journal editor for the Victorian Historical Journal for two years; consultant to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (1991); authored brochures for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, and textbooks for Year 12 students in partnership with the History Teachers’ Association of Victoria. He co-edited Australian Historical Studies (2009-2012). Professor Broome received awards for teaching from La Trobe University and the Australian Teaching and Learning Council in 2010 for ‘outstanding contributions to student learning’.

He was the winner of the Fellowship of Australian Writers Local History Prize in 1987 for Coburg: Between Two Creeks. His book Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800 won the NSW Premier’s Australian History Prize in 2006 and the Victorian Community History Awards in 2007 in the section ‘print publications.’ It was short-listed for the HREOC non-fiction prize in 2005 and the Victorian Premier’s Nettie Palmer non-fiction prize in 2006.

Professor Broome has remained active in retirement from La Trobe University since 2012 and has now published twenty books and also new editions of his most cited works including Aboriginal Victorians. A History since 1800 (2^nd edn, 2024 and Aboriginal Australians. A History since 1788 (5^th edn, 2019). He has written three life stories and his most recent co-authored works are Rembering Melbourne 1850-1960 (2017), Mallee Country. Land, People, History (2019). the four volume Victorian Year 12 text with Ashley Pratt, Analysing Australian History (Cambridge 2021) and The Story of Melbourne’s Lanes. Essential but Unplanned (2024).

Emeritus Professor Broome has been a councillor and vice president of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria 2013-2019), President (2019+) and co-editor of the Victorian Historical Journal (2017+). He actively lectures to historical societies, probus and U3A and to Year 12 students. He was Patron of the History Teachers Association of Victoria (2013-2022).

He is also a Chief Investigator with Professor Barry Judd and Associate Professor Kat Ellinghaus of the innovative ARC project Nguri Ninti (Knowing Home), edited by the CI’s together with a team of nine regional editors and four researchers who together will produce a 4-volume set of documents in First Nations’ history 1788-2020, written in collaboration with First Nations communities.

Richard was awarded Member (AM) in the General Division of The Order of Australia in the Australia Day 2020 Honours List for services to history and history education.