Ruth Dwyer is a freelance researcher and occasional author with a previous involvement in education. As a researcher her main interests are in the Australian decorative arts, the non-British population in nineteenth-century Victoria, and the history of Hawthorn, the suburb in which she lives. Papers concerning the arts have appeared in The World of Antiques & Art, and especially in Australiana, a journal published quarterly in New South Wales. She has contributed to catalogues published by the National Gallery of Victoria, and has regularly undertaken research concerning Australian antiques including the documentation of furniture and objects made of precious metals, including cups, presentation pieces and jewellery.