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Dr David Andrew Roberts

David Andrew Roberts

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, School of Humanities

Qualifications

PhD (Newcastle)

Contact

Email: drobert9@une.edu.au
Room: E11
Phone: 02 6773 3794 (or +61 2 6773 3794 overseas)
Fax: 02 6773 3520

Affiliations

Member of the Management Committee of the NSW History Council

Member of the Community Advisory Committee of the State Records of NSW

Editor of the Journal of Australian Colonial History

Director: Heritage Futures Research Centre

Research interests

Australia's early colonial history, rural and frontier history, Aboriginal rock paintings

Publications

Books & Monographs

  • Martin Crotty and D.A. Roberts (eds), Turning Points in Australian History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2008.
  • D.A Roberts & A. Parker (eds), Carl Warburton's Buffaloes: Adventures in Arnhem Land, Gecko Books, Marleston, 2007 xxiii + 261 pp.
  • Martin Crotty and D.A. Roberts (eds), The Great Mistakes of Australian History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2006.
  • Ancient Ochres: The Aboriginal Rock Paintings of Mount Borradaile, J.B. Books, Adelaide, 2003 (with Adrian Parker).

Refereed Articles and Book Chapters

  • '26 January 1788: The Arrival of the First Fleet and the "Foundation of Australia"', in M. Crotty and D.A. Roberts (eds), Turning Points in Australian History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2008, pp. 32-47.
  • (with Iain Davidson), '14 000 BC: On Being Alone: The isolation of the Tasmanians', in M. Crotty and D.A. Roberts (eds), Turning Points in Australian History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2008, pp. 18-31.
  • '''language to save the innocent'':Reverend L. Threlkeld's linguistic mission', Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Vol.94, Pt.2, December 2008, pp.107-125.
  • (with Martin Crotty), 'Introduction', in M. Crotty and D.A. Roberts (eds), Turning Points in Australian History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2008, pp. 1-17.
  • 'Russel Ward and the Convict Legend', Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol.10, No.2, 2008, pp. 37-58
  • (with Jeffrey Atkinson), '''Men of Colour'': John Joseph and the Eureka treason trials', Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol.10, No.1, 2008, pp. 75-98
  • (with Frank Bongiorno) 'Russel Ward's The Australian Legend at (Almost) Fifty', Australian Folklore, No.22, November 2007, pp.43-46
  • 'Introduction', in D.A Roberts & A. Parker (eds), Carl Warburton's Buffaloes:Adventures in Arnhem Land, Gecko Books, Marleston, 2007 pp vii-xxiii.
  • 'More sinned against than sinning': George Arnold Wood and the noble convict', in Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past since 1788, D. Gare & D. Ritter, Thomson, Melbourne, 2007,pp 122-130.
  • (with Martin Crotty), ‘Introduction’, in Martin Crotty and David Andrew Roberts (eds), The Great Mistakes of Australian History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2006 pp. 1-13.
  • '”They would speedily abandon the country to the new comers”: The denial of Aboriginal rights', in Martin Crotty and David Andrew Roberts (eds), The Great Mistakes of Australian History, University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 2006, pp. 14-31.
  • 'The Frontier', in A. Atkinson, J. Ryan, I. Davidson and A. Piper (eds), High Lean Country: Land, people and memory in New England, Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 2006, pp. 98-110.
  • '"The Valley of Swells": Educated convicts on the Wellington Valley settlement, 1827-31’, History Australia, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2006, pp. 11.1-11.21.
  • 'Windradyne’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1580-1980, C. Cunneen (ed.), Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005, pp. 408-9.
  • 'A "change of place": illegal movement on the Bathurst frontier, 1822-1825', Journal of Australian Colonial History, Vol. 7, 2005, pp. 97-122.
  • ‘Nautical Themes in the Aboriginal Rock Paintings of Mount Borradaile, Western Arnhem Land’, The Great Circle, Vol.26, No.1, 2004, pp.19-50.
  • ‘The Bells Falls Massacre and Oral Tradition’, in Attwood and Foster (eds.), Frontier Conflict: The Australian Experience, Canberra, National Museum of Australia, 2003, pp.150-8.
  • (with Hilary M. Carey) ‘Smallpox and the Baiame Waganna of Wellington Valley, New South Wales 1829-40: the earliest nativist movement in Aboriginal Australia?’, Ethnohistory, Vol. 49, No. 4, November 2002, pp. 821-69.
  • “`A Sort of Inland Norfolk Island”?: Isolation, Coercion and Resistance on the Wellington Convict Station, 1823-26’, Journal of Australian Colonial History,  April 2000, pp. 50-72.
  • ‘Bells Falls Massacre and Bathurst’s history of violence: local tradition and Australian historiography”, Australian Historical Studies 26, October 1995, pp.615-33.

 Non-refereed publications and websites

  • 'The Legend Turns fifty', Inside Story: Current Affairs and Culture, 27 November 2008
  • ‘Authenticating a Lock of Napoleon’s Hair: The Bizarre and Dubious Career of Frederick Lahrbush’, The Napoleonic Alliance Gazette 2, 2002.
  • (with Sue Wiblin) ‘The Castle Forbes Affair: Records of the 1833 Convict Revolt in the Hunter Valley, NSW Australia’, <http://www.une.edu.au/arts/ACF/cf1833/>
  • (with Hilary M. Carey) ‘The Wellington Valley Project: Papers relating the Church Missionary Society Mission to Wellington Valley, New South Wales, 1830-1842’ <http://www.newcastle.edu.au/group/amrhd/wvp/>
  • (with Hilary M. Carey) ‘Awaba: A Database of Historical Materials Relating to the Aborigines of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Region’, <http://www.newcastle.edu.au/group/amrhd/awaba/> 

Book reviews

  • B. Smith, Australia's Birthstain: the startling legacy of the convict era, Allen & Unwin, 2008. Reviewed for the Australian (Weekend Australian Review), 26-27 April 2008.
  • R. Waterhouse, The Vision Splendid: A Social And Cultural History of Rural Australia, Fremantle, Curtin University Press, 2005. Reviewed for History AustraliaVol.4, No.2, December 2007.
  • C. Dyer, The French Explorers and the Aboriginal Australians, 1772-1839, University of Queensland Press, 2005. Reviewed forInternational History Review, Vol.29, 2007.
  • J. Connor, The Australian Frontier Wars, 1788-1838. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2002. Reviewed for International History Review, Vol.27, 2005.
  • J. Campbell, Invisible Invaders: Smallpox and other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia, 1780-1880. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. Reviewed in Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2003.
  • A. Curthoys, Freedom Ride: A Freedom Rider Remembers. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 2002. Reviewed in Australian Aboriginal Studies, 2003.
  • R. Johnson, The Search for the Inland Sea: John Oxley, Explorer, 1783-1828, Melbourne University Press, 2001. Reviewed in Journal of Australian Colonial History , 2002.
  • L. Frost and H. Maxwell-Stewart (eds.), Chain Letters: Narrating Convict Lives. Melbourne University Press, 2002, Reviewed in Journal of Australian Colonial History , 2002.

HDR Supevision

Successful PhD theses completions (as primary supervisor)

Margaret Ina Vivers, 'Female Perspectives: A Study of the Colonial Texts of Adelaide Bowler and Lucy Gray' (2008)

Kate Gahan, 'Live Like Us: The Aborigines Welfare Board and Assimilation in Northern NSW' (2007)

PhD thesis examined

1 thesis for School of English, Media Studies and Art History, University of Queensland