James Kirby is a PhD candidate in history at La Trobe University in Bundoora. In 2012, he attained a first-class honours result in history, earning an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) scholarship. In 2014, the student completed a research trip to Botswana and the United Kingdom, funded by La Trobe University. The author’s research interests include human rights history, post-colonial studies, African history, and Australian history.

Author email: J.Kirby@latrobe.edu.au

Cassie May has a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Hons), and a Masters in Creative Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts. She curated Coming Home (3 October – 7 December 2014, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre), an exhibition that explored the history of the Bundoora Repatriation Mental Hospital. She is also Director of Neospace, a gallery exhibiting emerging contemporary artists.

Author email: cassie@neospace.com.au

Dr Cate O’Neill, of the eScholarship Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, is the National Editor and Research Co-ordinator of the Find & Connect web resource project. This project is funded by the Australian Government to develop a public knowledge space about the history of children’s institutions in Australia (www.findandconnect.gov.au).

Amber Graciana Evangelista is a graduate from Monash University who conducts research for the exhibitions team at Public Record Office Victoria. This current article stems from research conducted for the 2014–2015 School Days exhibition held at the Old Treasury Building. She has undertaken extensive research into the education of primary school–aged children in Nineteenth-Century Melbourne.  She currently works with the National Trust, and as an independent historical consultant. 

Barbara Minchinton completed her PhD on nineteenth century land selection in the Otways, Victoria, at the University of Melbourne in 2011. She is an independent researcher and a volunteer at Public Record Office Victoria, and has worked on numerous paid and unpaid projects from the archaeology of Little Lon to the transcription of nineteenth-century shipping lists and the digitisation of soldier settler records.

Author email: bminch@netspace.net.au

Jodi Turnbull is a researcher in Archaeology at La Trobe University. She also manages geographic information systems at a Melbourne heritage consultancy.

Author email: j.turnbull@latrobe.edu.au

Susan Lawrence teaches historical archaeology at La Trobe University. She is the author of several books, including most recently (co-authored with Peter Davies) An Archaeology of Australia Since 1788, Springer, New York, 2011.

Author email: s.lawrence@latrobe.edu.au

Peter Davies is a researcher in Archaeology at La Trobe University. He is the author of several books, including An Archaeology of Institutional Confinement: The Hyde Park Barracks 1848–1886, Sydney University Press in association with the Australasian Society for Historical Archaelogy, 2013 (co-authored with Penny Crook and Tim Murray). He also co-edits Australasian Historical Archaeology.

Author email: peter.davies@latrobe.edu.au

Dr David J Evans is a former Principal Research Scientist with CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering based in Geelong. He has also been active in charity work and served as the Honorary Secretary and later Executive Officer of Sirovilla Inc., a Geelong-based housing charity established in 1972. While serving in this role he published the organisation’s history in 1999 under the titleThe Sirovilla story, Patsey Pacific, Belmont, Victoria, 1999.

Jennifer McNeice is a local and family historian: writing, providing consultancy advice and conducting workshops for other researchers. She is a member of the Genealogical Society of Victoria and the Society of Australian Genealogists, and holds a Bachelor of Science (University of Melbourne) and Diploma in Family Historical Studies. She has recently written a history of Koonung Cottage.