Dr Michele Matthews has been a local and social historian for nearly three decades since she first used correspondence held by the then Bendigo City Council for her Honours thesis. She is an ardent advocate for the use of local history records to tell Victorian and Australian history from a grassroots perspective. Michele’s MA thesis, ‘A forgotten “Father” of Federation: Sir John Quick 1852‑1911’ (2003), and her PhD thesis, ‘Survivors, schemes, Samaritans and shareholders: the impact of the Great Depression on Bendigo and District 1925‑1935’ (2007), both drew heavily on Bendigo and district records.

Michele worked as an historian, undertaking numerous contracts for the former City of Bendigo Council, including researching and writing the Catalogue of Bendigo City Council’s Correspondence 1856‑1899. Since working at the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre (BRAC), she has created an accompanying subject and person index for this catalogue. Michele also worked as the historian for Bendigo Bank, cataloguing their extensive record collection. She has also written articles, book reviews and teachers’ notes for documentaries. A personal highlight was writing the entry for Sir John Quick in the Australian dictionary of biography, vol. 11.

Michele has been an Archives Officer at BRAC since its commencement in 2008.  Many of the records she now looks after in her day‑to‑day work are the same ones she first used while researching for her Honours thesis back in 1983. She has spoken at many public functions about the records housed at BRAC, and is particularly proud of the digitised online project, Petitions of the people, that was officially launched on 29 February this year.
Author email: work brac@ncgrl.vic.gov.au or michelematthews62@hotmail.com