‘Vandemonians’ wins 2022 Victorian Premier’s History Award

Janet McCalman has won the Victorian Premier’s History Award, worth $5000, for her book Vandemonians: The repressed history of colonial Victoria (MUP).

Chosen from a shortlist of 21 books, Vandemonians recounts the lives of 200 convicts transported to Port Phillip in the 1800s, and was praised by the judges for telling ‘poignant and personal stories with wit and irony’ and for its demonstration of excellent research and writing to uncover the collective biographies of the prisoners.

The Women of Little Lon: Sex workers in nineteenth-century Melbourne by Barbara Minchinton (Black Inc.) won the History Publication Award, with The Architecture of Devotion: James Goold and his legacies in colonial Melbourne (Jaynie Anderson, Max Vodola & Shane Carmody, The Miegunyah Press) among the highly commended.

In the community diversity category, Heritage Making and Migrant Subjects in the Deindustrialising Region of the Latrobe Valley (Alexandra Dellios, CUP) was the winner, with William Cooper: An Aboriginal life story (Bain Attwood, MUP) among the highly commended.

Meanwhile, Wangaratta Festival of Jazz & Blues 30 Years (Adrian Jackson & Andra Jackson, Melbourne Books) was among the highly commended in the collaborative community history award, and Jill Giese’s Meanjin essay ‘His Walking Feet’ was among the highly commended in the small history publication category.

The winners were presented at the Arts Centre in Melbourne on Friday, 21 October by Public Record Office Victoria.

For more information, see the Public Record Office Victoria website

Category: Awards Local news