Obituaries

With the death of Brian Matthews in June 2022 we lost a major figure in Australian Studies with a prodigious output over many years as lecturer, critic, biographer, creative writer, columnist, commentator, book reviewer and, of course, as lecturer and then professor in Australian Literature. Brian Ernest Matthews was born in East St Kilda to …

Brian Matthews FAHA 1936 – 2022 Read More »

A few weeks ago (in August 2023) my partner and I flew down to Melbourne to have lunch with Tim. He’d told me he wasn’t doing well in his long struggle with cancer, and when I asked whether it would help if we came down to see him, he said yes, and come as soon …

Timothy McNamara AM FAHA 1949 – 2023 Read More »

Elizabeth Jeffreys, FAHA (since 1993), an outstanding Byzantinist, died at the age of 82 on 12 September 2023 following complications after a stroke in Oxford where she had been Bywater and Sotheby Professor of Byzantine and Modern Greek Language and Literature and Fellow of Exeter College 1996-2006 (emerita in both cases since 2006). Previously she …

Elizabeth Jeffreys FAHA 1941 – 2023 Read More »

Elizabeth Anne Webby (née Loder, 9 February 1942-6 August 2023) was born in Sydney to Betty [née Ellis) and George Loder. Her father enlisted in the RAAF in 1941, trained as a navigator, and was posted to 156 Pathfinder Squadron RAF based in Cambridgeshire. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in November 1943. The …

Elizabeth Webby AM FAHA 1942 – 2023 Read More »

From 2014, Ross Gibson was Centenary Professor of Creative and Cultural Research at the University of Canberra. He has also been Professor of Contemporary Arts at the University of Sydney (2008 – 2013) and Research Professor of New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Technology, Sydney (2002-2008).  Among otheracademic and public appointments he …

Ross Gibson FAHA: 1956-2023 Read More »

It is significant that it takes three people to write this obituary as a document of Graeme’s diverse and productive life that takes in his brilliant and original scholarship in the area of Patristics (and Early Christianity), his excavation of the Hellenistic site of Jebel Khalid in Syria, and his support, in several capacities, of …

Graeme Wilber Clarke AO FAHA: 1934-2023 Read More »

Richard Perceval Davis (1935-2022), Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Tasmania, was a distinguished historian elected to the Academy of Humanities in 2007.  Educated at Campbell College, Belfast, Trinity College Dublin, and the University of Otago, he worked principally on Irish and Tasmanian history, with contributions, too, to the history of New Zealand …

Richard Davis FAHA: 1935-2022 Read More »